_Ch._ They mount the steps.
(_Enter the_ Populace.)
_Ch._ I killed the Provost!
_The Populace._ [_Speaking together._] 'T was Chiappino, friends!
Our savior! The best man at last as first!
He who first made us feel what chains we wore,
He also strikes the blow that shatters them,
He at last saves us--our best citizen!
--Oh, have you only courage to speak now?
My eldest son was christened a year since
"Cino" to keep Chiappino's name in mind--
Cino, for shortness merely, you observe!
The city 's in our hands. The guards are fled.
Do you, the cause of all, come down--come up--
Come out to counsel us, our chief, our king,
Whate'er rewards you! Choose your own reward!
The peril over, its reward begins!
Come and harangue us in the market-place!
_Eu._ Chiappino?
_Ch._ Yes--I understand your eyes!
You think I should have promptlier disowned
This deed with its strange unforeseen success,
In favor of Luitolfo. But the peril,
So far from ended, hardly seems begun.
To-morrow, rather, when a calm succeeds,
We easily shall make him full amends:
And meantime--if we save them as they pray,
And justify the deed by its effects?
_Eu._ You would, for worlds, you had denied at once.
_Ch._ I know my own intention, be assured!
All 's well. Precede us, fellow-citizens!
ACT II
_The Market-place._ LUITOLFO _in disguise mingling with the_
Populace _assembled opposite the_ Provost's _Palace_.
_1st Bystander._ [_To_ LUIT.] You, a friend of Luitolfo's?
Then, your friend is vanished,--in all probability killed on the
night that his patron the tyrannical Provost was loyally suppressed
here, exactly a month ago, by our illustrious fellow-citizen,
thrice-noble savior, and new Provost that is like to be, this very
morning,--Chiappino!
_Luit._ He the new Provost?
_2d By._ Up those steps will he go, and beneath yonder pillar
stand, while Ogniben, the Pope's Legate from Ravenna, reads the new
dignitary's title to the people, according to established custom: for
which reason, there is the assemblage you inquire about.
_Luit._ Chiappino--the late Provost's successor? Impossible! But tell
me of that presently. What I would know first of all is, wherefore
Luitolfo must so necessarily have been killed on that memorable night?
_3d By._ You were Luitolfo's friend? So was I. Never, if you will
credit me, did there exist so poor-spirited a milk-sop. He, with all
the opportunities in the world, furnished by daily converse with our
oppressor, would not stir a finger to help us: and, when Chiappino rose
in solitary majesty and ... how does one go on saying?... dealt the
godlike blow,--this Luitolfo, not unreasonably fearing the indignation
of an aroused and liberated people, fled precipitately. He may have got
trodden to death in the press at the southeast gate, when the Provost's
guards fled through it to Ravenna, with their wounded master,--if he
did not rather hang himself under some hedge.
_Luit._ Or why not simply have lain perdue in some quiet corner,--such
as San Cassiano, where his estate was,--receiving daily intelligence
from some sure friend, meanwhile, as to the turn matters were taking
here--how, for instance, the Provost was not dead, after all, only
wounded--or, as to-day's news would seem to prove, how Chiappino
was not Brutus the Elder, after all, only the new Provost--and thus
Luitolfo be enabled to watch a favorable opportunity for returning?
Might it not have been so?
_3d By._ Why, he may have taken that care of himself, certainly, for
he came of a cautious stock. I 'll tell you how his uncle, just such
another gingerly treader on tiptoes with finger on lip,--how he met
his death in the great plague-year: _dico vobis!_ Hearing that the
seventeenth house in a certain street was infected, he calculates to
pass it in safety by taking plentiful breath, say, when he shall arrive
at the eleventh house; then scouring by, holding that breath, till he
be got so far on the other side as number twenty-three, and thus elude
the danger.--And so did he begin; but, as he arrived at thirteen, we
will say,--thinking to improve on his precaution by putting up a little
prayer to Saint Nepomucene of Prague, this exhausted so much of his
lungs' reserve, that at sixteen it was clean spent,--consequently at
the fatal seventeen he inhaled with a vigor and persistence enough to
suck you any latent venom out of the heart of a stone--Ha, ha!
_Luit._ [_Aside._] (If I had not lent that man the money he wanted last
spring, I should fear this bitterness was attributable to me.) Luitolfo
is dead then, one may conclude?
_3d By._ Why, he had a house here, and a woman to whom he was
affianced; and as they both pass naturally to the new Provost, his
friend and heir ...
_Luit._ Ah, I suspected you of imposing on me with your pleasantry! I
know Chiappino better.
_1st By._ (Our friend has the bile! After all, I do not dislike finding
somebody vary a little this general gape of admiration at Chiappino's
glorious qualities.) Pray, how much may you know of what has taken
place in Faenza since that memorable night?
_Luit._ It is most to the purpose, that I know Chiappino to have been
by profession a hater of that very office of Provost, you now charge
him with proposing to accept.
_1st By._ Sir, I 'll tell you. That night was indeed memorable. Up we
rose, a mass of us, men, women, children; out fled the guards with the
body of the tyrant; we were to defy the world: but, next gray morning,
"What will Rome say?" began everybody. You know we are governed by
Ravenna, which is governed by Rome. And quietly into the town, by the
Ravenna road, comes on muleback a portly personage, Ogniben by name,
with the quality of Pontifical Legate; trots briskly through the
streets humming a "_Cur fremuere gentes_," and makes directly for the
Provost's Palace--there it faces you. "One Messer Chiappino is your
leader? I have known three-and-twenty leaders of revolts!" (laughing
gently to himself)--"Give me the help of your arm from my mule to
yonder steps under the pillar--So! And now, my revolters and good
friends, what do you want? The guards burst into Ravenna last night
bearing your wounded Provost; and, having had a little talk with him, I
take on myself to come and try appease the disorderliness, before Rome,
hearing of it, resort to another method: 't is I come, and not another,
from a certain love I confess to, of composing differences. So, do you
understand, you are about to experience this unheard-of tyranny from
me, that there shall be no heading nor hanging, nor confiscation nor
exile: I insist on your simply pleasing yourselves. And now, pray,
what does please you? To live without any government at all? Or having
decided for one, to see its minister murdered by the first of your
body that chooses to find himself wronged, or disposed for reverting
to first principles and a justice anterior to all institutions,--and
so will you carry matters, that the rest of the world must at length
unite and put down such a den of wild beasts? As for vengeance on what
has just taken place,--once for all, the wounded man assures me he
cannot conjecture who struck him; and this so earnestly, that one may
be sure he knows perfectly well what intimate acquaintance could find
admission to speak with him late last evening. I come not for vengeance
therefore, but from pure curiosity to hear what you will do next."
And thus he ran on, on, easily and volubly, till he seemed to arrive
quite naturally at the praise of law, order, and paternal government
by somebody from rather a distance. All our citizens were in the
snare, and about to be friends with so congenial an adviser; but that
Chiappino suddenly stood forth, spoke out indignantly, and set things
right again.
_Luit._ Do you see? I recognize him there!
_3d By._ Ay, but, mark you, at the end of Chiappino's longest period in
praise of a pure republic,--"And by whom do I desire such a government
should be administered, perhaps, but by one like yourself?" returns the
Legate: thereupon speaking for a quarter of an hour together, on the
natural and only legitimate government by the best and wisest. And it
should seem there was soon discovered to be no such vast discrepancy
at bottom between this and Chiappino's theory, place but each in its
proper light. "Oh, are you there?" quoth Chiappino: "Ay, in that, I
agree," returns Chiappino: and so on.
_Luit._ But did Chiappino cede at once to this?
_1st By._ Why, not altogether at once. For instance, he said that the
difference between him and all his fellows was, that they seemed all
wishing to be kings in one or another way,--"whereas what right,"
asked he, "has any man to wish to be superior to another?"--whereat,
"Ah, sir," answers the Legate, "this is the death of me, so often
as I expect something is really going to be revealed to us by you
clearer-seers, deeper-thinkers--this--that your right-hand (to speak
by a figure) should be found taking up the weapon it displayed
so ostentatiously, not to destroy any dragon in our path, as was
prophesied, but simply to cut off its own fellow left-hand: yourself
set about attacking yourself. For see now! Here are you who, I make
sure, glory exceedingly in knowing the noble nature of the soul, its
divine impulses, and so forth; and with such a knowledge you stand, as
it were, armed to encounter the natural doubts and fears as to that
same inherent nobility, which are apt to waylay us, the weaker ones,
in the road of life. And when we look eagerly to see them fall before
you, lo, round you wheel, only the left-hand gets the blow; one proof
of the soul's nobility destroys simply another proof, quite as good, of
the same, for you are found delivering an opinion like this! Why, what
is this perpetual yearning to exceed, to subdue, to be better than,
and a king over, one's fellows,--all that you so disclaim,--but the
very tendency yourself are most proud of, and under another form, would
oppose to it,--only in a lower stage of manifestation? You don't want
to be vulgarly superior to your fellows after their poor fashion-- to
have me hold solemnly up your gown's tail, or hand you an express of
the last importance from the Pope, with all these bystanders noticing
how unconcerned you look the while: but neither does our gaping friend,
the burgess yonder, want the other kind of kingship, that consists in
understanding better than his fellows this and similar points of human
nature, nor to roll under his tongue this sweeter morsel still, --the
feeling that, through immense philosophy, he does _not_ feel, he rather
thinks, above you and me!" And so chatting, they glided off arm-in-arm.
_Luit._ And the result is ...
_1st By._ Why that, a month having gone by, the indomitable Chiappino,
marrying as he will Luitolfo's love--at all events succeeding to
Luitolfo's wealth--becomes the first inhabitant of Faenza, and a proper
aspirant to the Provostship; which we assemble here to see conferred on
him this morning. The Legate's Guard to clear the way! He will follow
presently.
_Luit._ [_Withdrawing a little._] I understand the drift of Eulalia's
communications less than ever. Yet she surely said, in so many words,
that Chiappino was in urgent danger: wherefore, disregarding her
injunction to continue in my retreat and await the result of--what she
called, some experiment yet in process--I hastened here without her
leave or knowledge: how could I else? But if this they say be true--if
it were for such a purpose, she and Chiappino kept me away ... Oh, no,
no! I must confront him and her before I believe this of them. And at
the word, see!
(_Enter_ CHIAPPINO _and_ EULALIA.)
_Eu._ We part here, then? The change in your principles would seem to
be complete.
_Ch._ Now, why refuse to see that in my present course I change no
principles, only re-adapt them and more adroitly? I had despaired of
what you may call the material instrumentality of life; of ever being
able to rightly operate on mankind through such a deranged machinery
as the existing modes of government: but now, if I suddenly discover
how to inform these perverted institutions with fresh purpose, bring
the functionary limbs once more into immediate communication with, and
subjection to, the soul I am about to bestow on them--do you see? Why
should one desire to invent, as long as it remains possible to renew
and transform? When all further hope of the old organization shall be
extinct, then, I grant you, it may be time to try and create another.
_Eu._ And there being discoverable some hope yet in the hitherto
much-abused old system of absolute government by a Provost here, you
mean to take your time about endeavoring to realize those visions of a
perfect State we once heard of?
_Ch._ Say, I would fain realize my conception of a palace, for
instance, and that there is, abstractedly, but a single way of
erecting one perfectly. Here, in the market-place is my allotted
building-ground; here I stand without a stone to lay, or a laborer to
help me,--stand, too, during a short day of life, close on which the
night comes. On the other hand, circumstances suddenly offer me (turn
and see it!) the old Provost's house to experiment upon--ruinous, if
you please, wrongly constructed at the beginning, and ready to tumble
now. But materials abound, a crowd of workmen offer their services;
here exists yet a Hall of Audience of originally noble proportions,
there a Guest-chamber of symmetrical design enough: and I may restore,
enlarge, abolish or unite these to heart's content. Ought I not
make the best of such an opportunity, rather than continue to gaze
disconsolately with folded arms on the flat pavement here, while the
sun goes slowly down, never to rise again? Since you cannot understand
this nor me, it is better we should part as you desire.
_Eu._ So, the love breaks away too!
_Ch._ No, rather my soul's capacity for love widens--needs more than
one object to content it,--and, being better instructed, will not
persist in seeing all the component parts of love in what is only a
single part,--nor in finding that so many and so various loves are all
united in the love of a woman,--manifold uses in one instrument, as the
savage has his sword, staff, sceptre and idol, all in one club-stick.
Love is a very compound thing. The intellectual part of my love I shall
give to men, the mighty dead or the illustrious living; and determine
to call a mere sensual instinct by as few fine names as possible. What
do I lose?
_Eu._ Nay, I only think, what do I lose? and, one more word--which
shall complete my instruction--does friendship go too? What of
Luitolfo, the author of your present prosperity?
_Ch._ How the author?
_Eu._ That blow now called yours ...
_Ch._ Struck without principle or purpose, as by a blind natural
operation: yet to which all my thought and life directly and advisedly
tended. I would have struck it, and could not: he would have done his
utmost to avoid striking it, yet did so. I dispute his right to that
deed of mine--a final action with him, from the first effect of which
he fled away,--a mere first step with me, on which I base a whole
mighty superstructure of good to follow. Could he get good from it?
_Eu._ So we profess, so we perform!
(_Enter_ OGNIBEN. EULALIA _stands apart_.)
_Ogniben._ I have seen three-and-twenty leaders of revolts. By your
leave, sir! Perform? What does the lady say of performing?
_Ch._ Only the trite saying, that we must not trust profession, only
performance.
_Ogni._ She 'll not say that, sir, when she knows you longer; you 'll
instruct her better. Ever judge of men by their professions! For though
the bright moment of promising is but a moment and cannot be prolonged,
yet, if sincere in its moment's extravagant goodness, why, trust it
and know the man by it, I say--not by his performance; which is half
the world's work, interfere as the world needs must, with its accidents
and circumstances: the profession was purely the man's own. I judge
people by what they might be,--not are, nor will be.
_Ch._ But have there not been found, too, performing natures, not
merely promising?
_Ogni._ Plenty. Little Bindo of our town, for instance, promised his
friend, great ugly Masaccio, once, "I will repay you!"--for a favor
done him. So, when his father came to die, and Bindo succeeded to the
inheritance, he sends straightway for Masaccio and shares all with
him--gives him half the land, half the money, half the kegs of wine
in the cellar. "Good," say you: and it is good. But had little Bindo
found himself possessor of all this wealth some five years before--on
the happy night when Masaccio procured him that interview in the garden
with his pretty cousin Lisa --instead of being the beggar he then
was,--I am bound to believe that in the warm moment of promise he would
have given away all the wine-kegs and all the money and all the land,
and only reserved to himself some hut on a hilltop hard by, whence he
might spend his life in looking and seeing his friend enjoy himself: he
meant fully that much, but the world interfered. --To our business! Did
I understand you just now within-doors? You are not going to marry your
old friend's love, after all?
_Ch._ I must have a woman that can sympathize with, and appreciate me,
I told you.
_Ogni._ Oh, I remember! You, the greater nature, needs must have a
lesser one (--avowedly lesser--contest with you on that score would
never do)--such a nature must comprehend you, as the phrase is,
accompany and testify of your greatness from point to point onward.
Why, that were being not merely as great as yourself, but greater
considerably! Meantime, might not the more bounded nature as reasonably
count on your appreciation of it, rather?--on your keeping close by it,
so far as you both go together, and then going on by yourself as far as
you please? Thus God serves us.
_Ch._ And yet a woman that could understand the whole of me, to whom I
could reveal alike the strength and the weakness--
_Ogni._ Ah, my friend, wish for nothing so foolish! Worship your love,
give her the best of you to see; be to her like the western lands (they
bring us such strange news of) to the Spanish Court; send her only your
lumps of gold, fans of feathers, your spirit-like birds, and fruits
and gems! So shall you, what is unseen of you, be supposed altogether
a paradise by her,--as these western lands by Spain: though I warrant
there is filth, red baboons, ugly reptiles and squalor enough, which
they bring Spain as few samples of as possible. Do you want your
mistress to respect your body generally? Offer her your mouth to kiss:
don't strip off your boot and put your foot to her lips! You understand
my humor by this time? I help men to carry out their own principles: if
they please to say two and two make five, I assent, so they will but go
on and say, four and four make ten.
_Ch._ But these are my private affairs; what I desire you to occupy
yourself about, is my public appearance presently: for when the people
hear that I am appointed Provost, though you and I may thoroughly
discern--and easily, too--the right principle at bottom of such a
movement, and how my republicanism remains thoroughly unaltered, only
takes a form of expression hitherto commonly judged (and heretofore by
myself) incompatible with its existence,--when thus I reconcile myself
to an old form of government instead of proposing a new one--
_Ogni._ Why, you must deal with people broadly. Begin at a distance
from this matter and say,--New truths, old truths! sirs, there is
nothing new possible to be revealed to us in the moral world; we
know all we shall ever know: and it is for simply reminding us, by
their various respective expedients, how we do know this and the
other matter, that men get called prophets, poets and the like. A
philosopher's life is spent in discovering that, of the half-dozen
truths he knew when a child, such an one is a lie, as the world states
it in set terms; and then, after a weary lapse of years, and plenty of
hard thinking, it becomes a truth again after all, as he happens to
newly consider it and view it in a different relation with the others:
and so he re-states it, to the confusion of somebody else in good time.
As for adding to the original stock of truths,--impossible! Thus, you
see the expression of them is the grand business:--you have got a truth
in your head about the right way of governing people, and you took a
mode of expressing it which now you confess to be imperfect. But what
then? There is truth in falsehood, falsehood in truth. No man ever told
one great truth, that I know, without the help of a good dozen of lies
at least, generally unconscious ones. And as when a child comes in
breathlessly and relates a strange story, you try to conjecture from
the very falsities in it what the reality was,--do not conclude that
he saw nothing in the sky, because he assuredly did not see a flying
horse there as he says,--so, through the contradictory expression, do
you see, men should look painfully for, and trust to arrive eventually
at, what you call the true principle at bottom. Ah, what an answer
is there! to what will it not prove applicable?--"Contradictions? Of
course there were," say you!
_Ch._ Still, the world at large may call it inconsistency, and what
shall I urge in reply?
_Ogni._ Why, look you, when they tax you with tergiversation or
duplicity, you may answer--you begin to perceive that, when all 's done
and said, both great parties in the State, the advocators of change
in the present system of things, and the opponents of it, patriot and
anti-patriot, are found working together for the common good; and that
in the midst of their efforts for and against its progress, the world
somehow or other still advances: to which result they contribute in
equal proportions, those who spend their life in pushing it onward, as
those who give theirs to the business of pulling it back. Now, if you
found the world stand still between the opposite forces, and were glad,
I should conceive you: but it steadily advances, you rejoice to see! By
the side of such a rejoicer, the man who only winks as he keeps cunning
and quiet, and says, "Let yonder hot-headed fellow fight out my battle!
I, for one, shall win in the end by the blows he gives, and which I
ought to be giving,"--even he seems graceful in his avowal, when one
considers that he might say, "I shall win quite as much by the blows
our antagonist gives him, blows from which he saves me--I thank the
antagonist equally!" Moreover, you may enlarge on the loss of the edge
of party-animosity with age and experience ...
_Ch._ And naturally time must wear off such asperities: the bitterest
adversaries get to discover certain points of similarity between each
other, common sympathies--do they not?
_Ogni._ Ay, had the young David but sat first to dine on his cheeses
with the Philistine, he had soon discovered an abundance of such
common sympathies. He of Gath, it is recorded, was born of a father
and mother, had brothers and sisters like another man,--they, no more
than the sons of Jesse, were used to eat each other. But, for the sake
of one broad antipathy that had existed from the beginning, David
slung the stone, cut off the giant's head, made a spoil of it, and
after ate his cheeses alone, with the better appetite, for all I can
learn. My friend, as you, with a quickened eyesight, go on discovering
much good on the worse side, remember that the same process should
proportionably magnify and demonstrate to you the much more good on
the better side! And when I profess no sympathy for the Goliaths of
our time, and you object that a large nature should sympathize with
every form of intelligence, and see the good in it, however limited,--I
answer, "So I do; but preserve the proportions of my sympathy, however
finelier or widelier I may extend its action." I desire to be able,
with a quickened eyesight, to descry beauty in corruption where others
see foulness only; but I hope I shall also continue to see a redoubled
beauty in the higher forms of matter, where already everybody sees no
foulness at all. I must retain, too, my old power of selection, and
choice of appropriation, to apply to such new gifts; else they only
dazzle instead of enlightening me. God has his archangels and consorts
with them: though he made too, and intimately sees what is good in, the
worm. Observe, I speak only as you profess to think and so ought to
speak: I do justice to your own principles, that is all.
_Ch._ But you very well know that the two parties do, on occasion,
assume each other's characteristics. What more disgusting, for
instance, than to see how promptly the newly emancipated slave will
adopt, in his own favor, the very measures of precaution, which pressed
soreliest on himself as institutions of the tyranny he has just escaped
from? Do the classes, hitherto without opinion, get leave to express
it? there follows a confederacy immediately, from which--exercise your
individual right and dissent, and woe be to you!
_Ogni._ And a journey over the sea to you! That is the generous way.
Cry--"Emancipated slaves, the first excess, and off I go!" The first
time a poor devil, who has been bastinadoed steadily his whole life
long, finds himself let alone and able to legislate, so, begins
pettishly, while he rubs his soles, "Woe be to whoever brings anything
in the shape of a stick this way!"--you, rather than give up the very
innocent pleasure of carrying one to switch flies with,--you go away,
to everybody's sorrow. Yet you were quite reconciled to staying at home
while the governors used to pass, every now and then, some such edict
as, "Let no man indulge in owning a stick which is not thick enough to
chastise our slaves, if need require!" Well, there are pre-ordained
hierarchies among us, and a profane vulgar subjected to a different law
altogether; yet I am rather sorry you should see it so clearly: for, do
you know what is to--all but save you at the Day of Judgment, all you
men of genius? It is this: that, while you generally began by pulling
down God, and went on to the end of your life in one effort at setting
up your own genius in his place,--still, the last, bitterest concession
wrung with the utmost unwillingness from the experience of the very
loftiest of you, was invariably--would one think it?--that the rest
of mankind, down to the lowest of the mass, stood not, nor ever could
stand, just on a level and equality with yourselves. That will be a
point in the favor of all such, I hope and believe.
_Ch._ Why, men of genius are usually charged, I think, with doing
just the reverse; and at once acknowledging the natural inequality of
mankind, by themselves participating in the universal craving after,
and deference to, the civil distinctions which represent it. You wonder
they pay such undue respect to titles and badges of superior rank.
_Ogni._ Not I (always on your own ground and showing, be it noted!) Who
doubts that, with a weapon to brandish, a man is the more formidable?
Titles and badges are exercised as such a weapon, to which you and
I look up wistfully. We could pin lions with it moreover, while in
its present owner's hands it hardly prods rats. Nay, better than
a mere weapon of easy mastery and obvious use, it is a mysterious
divining-rod that may serve us in undreamed-of ways. Beauty, strength,
intellect--men often have none of these, and yet conceive pretty
accurately what kind of advantages they would bestow on the possessor.
We know at least what it is we make up our mind to forego, and so can
apply the fittest substitute in our power. Wanting beauty, we cultivate
good-humor; missing wit, we get riches: but the mystic unimaginable
operation of that gold collar and string of Latin names which suddenly
turned poor stupid little peevish Cecco of our town into natural lord
of the best of us--a Duke, he is now--there indeed is a virtue to be
reverenced!
_Ch._ Ay, by the vulgar: not by Messere Stiatta the poet, who pays more
assiduous court to him than anybody.
_Ogni._ What else should Stiatta pay court to? He has talent, not honor
and riches: men naturally covet what they have not.
_Ch._ No; or Cecco would covet talent, which he has not, whereas he
covets more riches, of which he has plenty, already.
_Ogni._ Because a purse added to a purse makes the holder twice as
rich: but just such another talent as Stiatta's, added to what he now
possesses, what would that profit him? Give the talent a purse indeed,
to do something with! But lo, how we keep the good people waiting!
I only desired to do justice to the noble sentiments which animate
you, and which you are too modest to duly enforce. Come, to our main
business: shall we ascend the steps? I am going to propose you for
Provost to the people; they know your antecedents, and will accept you
with a joyful unanimity: whereon I confirm their choice. Rouse up!
Are you nerving yourself to an effort? Beware the disaster of Messere
Stiatta we were talking of! who, determining to keep an equal mind and
constant face on whatever might be the fortune of his last new poem
with our townsmen, heard too plainly "hiss, hiss, hiss," increase every
moment. Till at last the man fell senseless: not perceiving that the
portentous sounds had all the while been issuing from between his own
nobly clenched teeth, and nostrils narrowed by resolve.
_Ch._ Do you begin to throw off the mask?--to jest with me, having got
me effectually into your trap?
_Ogni._ Where is the trap, my friend? You hear what I engage to do,
for my part: you, for yours, have only to fulfil your promise made
just now within doors, of professing unlimited obedience to Rome's
authority in my person. And I shall authorize no more than the
simple re-establishment of the Provostship and the conferment of its
privileges upon yourself: the only novel stipulation being a birth of
the peculiar circumstances of the time.
_Ch._ And that stipulation?
_Ogni._ Just the obvious one--that in the event of the discovery of the
actual assailant of the late Provost ...
_Ch._ Ha!
_Ogni._ Why, he shall suffer the proper penalty, of course; what did
you expect?
_Ch._ Who heard of this?
_Ogni._ Rather, who needed to hear of this?
_Ch._ Can it be, the popular rumor never reached you ...
_Ogni._ Many more such rumors reach me, friend, than I choose to
receive: those which wait longest have best chance. Has the present one
sufficiently waited? Now is its time for entry with effect. See the
good people crowding about yonder palace-steps--which we may not have
to ascend, after all! My good friends! (nay, two or three of you will
answer every purpose)--who was it fell upon and proved nearly the death
of your late Provost? His successor desires to hear, that his day of
inauguration may be graced by the act of prompt, bare justice we all
anticipate. Who dealt the blow that night, does anybody know?
_Luit._ [_Coming forward._] I!
_All._ Luitolfo!
_Luit._ I avow the deed, justify and approve it, and stand forth now,
to relieve my friend of an unearned responsibility. Having taken
thought, I am grown stronger: I shall shrink from nothing that awaits
me. Nay, Chiappino--we are friends still: I dare say there is some
proof of your superior nature in this starting aside, strange as it
seemed at first. So, they tell me, my horse is of the right stock,
because a shadow in the path frightens him into a frenzy, makes him
dash my brains out. I understand only the dull mule's way of standing
stockishly, plodding soberly, suffering on occasion a blow or two with
due patience.
_Eu._ I was determined to justify my choice, Chiappino; to let
Luitolfo's nature vindicate itself. Henceforth we are undivided,
whatever be our fortune.
_Ogni._ Now, in these last ten minutes of silence, what have I been
doing, deem you? Putting the finishing stroke to a homily of mine, I
have long taken thought to perfect, on the text, "Let whoso thinketh
he standeth, take heed lest he fall." To your house, Luitolfo! Still
silent, my patriotic friend? Well, that is a good sign however. And
you will go aside for a time? That is better still. I understand: it
would be easy for you to die of remorse here on the spot and shock us
all, but you mean to live and grow worthy of coming back to us one
day. There, I will tell everybody; and you only do right to believe
you must get better as you get older. All men do so: they are worst in
childhood, improve in manhood, and get ready in old age for another
world. Youth, with its beauty and grace, would seem bestowed on us for
some such reason as to make us partly endurable till we have time for
really becoming so of ourselves, without their aid; when they leave
us. The sweetest child we all smile on for his pleasant want of the
whole world to break up, or suck in his mouth, seeing no other good
in it--would be rudely handled by that world's inhabitants, if he
retained those angelic infantine desires when he had grown six feet
high, black and bearded. But, little by little, he sees fit to forego
claim after claim on the world, puts up with a less and less share of
its good as his proper portion; and when the octogenarian asks barely
a sup of gruel and a fire of dry sticks, and thanks you as for his
full allowance and right in the common good of life,--hoping nobody
may murder him,--he who began by asking and expecting the whole of us
to bow down in worship to him,--why, I say he is advanced, far onward,
very far, nearly out of sight like our friend Chiappino yonder. And
now--(ay, good-by to you! He turns round the northwest gate: going to
Lugo again? Good-by!)--And now give thanks to God, the keys of the
Provost's palace to me, and yourselves to profitable meditation at
home! I have known _Four_-and-twenty leaders of revolts.
LURIA
A TRAGEDY
I DEDICATE THIS LAST ATTEMPT FOR THE PRESENT AT DRAMATIC POETRY TO A
GREAT DRAMATIC POET; "WISHING WHAT I WRITE MAY BE READ BY HIS LIGHT:"
IF A PHRASE ORIGINALLY ADDRESSED, BY NOT THE LEAST WORTHY OF HIS
CONTEMPORARIES, TO SHAKESPEARE, MAY BE APPLIED HERE, BY ONE WHOSE SOLE
PRIVILEGE IS IN A GRATEFUL ADMIRATION, To WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
LONDON, 1846.
PERSONS
LURIA, a Moor, Commander of the Florentine Forces.
HUSAIN, a Moor, his friend.
PUCCIO, the old Florentine Commander, now LURIA'S Chief Officer.
BRACCIO, Commissary of the Republic of Florence.
JACOPO (LAPO), his Secretary.
TIBURZIO, Commander of the Pisans.
DOMIZIA, a noble Florentine Lady.
TIME, 14--.
SCENE. LURIA'S _Camp between Florence and Pisa._
ACT I
MORNING
BRACCIO, _as dictating to his_ Secretary; PUCCIO _standing by_.
_Braccio._ [_To_ PUCCIO.] Then, you join battle in an hour?
_Puccio._ Not I;
Luria, the captain.
_Brac._ [_To the_ Sec.] "In an hour, the battle."
[_To_ PUC.] Sir, let your eye run o'er this loose digest,
And see if very much of your report
Have slipped away through my civilian phrase.
Does this instruct the Signory aright
How army stands with army?
_Puc._ [_Taking the paper._] All seems here:
--That Luria, seizing with our city's force
The several points of vantage, hill and plain,
Shuts Pisa safe from help on every side,
And, baffling the Lucchese arrived too late,
Must, in the battle he delivers now,
Beat her best troops and first of chiefs.
_Brac._ So sure?
Tiburzio 's a consummate captain too!
_Puc._ Luria holds Pisa's fortune in his hand.
_Brac._ [_To the_ Sec.] "The Signory hold Pisa in their hand."
Your own proved soldiership 's our warrant, sir:
So, while my secretary ends his task,
Have out two horsemen, by the open roads,
To post with it to Florence!
_Puc._ [_Returning the paper._] All seems here;
Unless ... Ser Braccio, 't is my last report!
Since Pisa's outbreak, and my overthrow,
And Luria's hastening at the city's call
To save her, as he only could, no doubt;
Till now that she is saved or sure to be,--
Whatever you tell Florence, I tell you:
Each day's note you, her Commissary, make
Of Luria's movements, I myself supply.
No youngster am I longer, to my cost;
Therefore while Florence gloried in her choice
And vaunted Luria, whom but Luria, still,
As if zeal, courage, prudence, conduct, faith,
Had never met in any man before,
I saw no pressing need to swell the cry.
But now, this last report and I have done:
So, ere to-night comes with its roar of praise,
'T were not amiss if some one old i' the trade
Subscribed with, "True, for once rash counsel 's best.
This Moor of the bad faith and doubtful race,
This boy to whose untried sagacity,
Raw valor, Florence trusts without reserve
The charge to save her,--justifies her choice;
In no point has this stranger failed his friends.
Now praise!" I say this, and it is not here.
_Brac._ [_To the_ Sec.] Write, "Puccio, superseded in the charge,
By Luria, bears full witness to his worth,
Aid no reward our Signory can give
Their champion but he 'll back it cheerfully."
Aught more? Five minutes hence, both messengers! [Puccio _goes_.
_Brac._ [_After a pause, and while he slowly tears the paper into
shreds._]
I think ... (pray God, I hold in fit contempt
This warfare 's noble art and ordering,
And,--once the brace of prizers fairly matched,
Poleaxe with poleaxe, knife with knife as good,--
Spit properly at what men term their skill!--)
Yet here I think our fighter has the odds.
With Pisa's strength diminished thus and thus,
Such points of vantage in our hands and such,
Lucca still off the stage, too,--all 's assured:
Luria must win this battle. Write the Court,
That Luria's trial end and sentence pass!
_Secretary._ Patron,--
_Brac._ Ay, Lapo?
_Sec._ If you trip, I fall;
'T is in self-interest I speak--
_Brac._ Nay, nay,
You overshoot the mark, my Lapo! Nay!
When did I say pure love 's impossible?
I make you daily write those red cheeks thin,
Load your young brow with what concerns it least,
And, when we visit Florence, let you pace
The Piazza by my side as if we talked,
Where all your old acquaintances may see:
You 'd die for me, I should not be surprised.
Now then!
_Sec._ Sir, look about and love yourself!
Step after step, the Signory and you
Tread gay till this tremendous point 's to pass;
Which pass not, pass not, ere you ask yourself,--
Bears the brain steadily such draughts of fire,
Or too delicious may not prove the pride
Of this long secret trial you dared plan,
Dare execute, you solitary here,
With the gray-headed toothless fools at home,
Who think themselves your lords, such slaves are they?
If they pronounce this sentence as you bid,
Declare the treason, claim its penalty,--
And sudden out of all the blaze of life,
On the best minute of his brightest day,
From that adoring army at his back,
Through Florence' joyous crowds before his face,
Into the dark you beckon Luria ...
_Brac._ Then--
Why, Lapo, when the fighting-people vaunt,
We of the other craft and mystery,
May we not smile demure, the danger past?
_Sec._ Sir, no, no, no,--the danger, and your spirit
At watch and ward? Where 's danger on your part,
With that thin flitting instantaneous steel
'Gainst the blind bull-front of a brute-force world?
If Luria, that 's to perish sure as fate,
Should have been really guiltless after all?
_Brac._ Ah, you have thought that?
_Sec._ Here I sit, your scribe,
And in and out goes Luria, days and nights;
This Puccio comes; the Moor his other friend,
Husain; they talk--that 's all feigned easily;
He speaks (I would not listen if I could),
Reads, orders, counsels:--but he rests sometimes,--
I see him stand and eat, sleep stretched an hour
On the lynx-skins yonder; hold his bared black arms
Into the sun from the tent-opening; laugh
When his horse drops the forage from his teeth
And neighs to hear him hum his Moorish songs.
That man believes in Florence, as the saint
Tied to the wheel believes in God.
_Brac._ How strange!
You too have thought that!
_Sec._ Do but you think too,
And all is saved! I only have to write,
"The man seemed false awhile, proves true at last;
Bury it"--so I write the Signory--
"Bury this trial in your breast forever,
Blot it from things or done or dreamed about!
So Luria shall receive his meed to-day
With no suspicion what reverse was near,--
As if no meteoric finger hushed
The doom-word just on the destroyer's lip,
Motioned him off, and let life's sun fall straight."
_Brac._ [_Looks to the wall of the tent._] Did he draw that?
_Sec._ With charcoal, when the watch
Made the report at midnight; Lady Domizia
Spoke of the unfinished Duomo, you remember;
That is his fancy how a Moorish front
Might join to, and complete, the body,--a sketch,--
And again where the cloak hangs, yonder in the shadow.
_Brac._ He loves that woman.
_Sec._ She is sent the spy
Of Florence,--spies on you as you on him:
Florence, if only for Domizia's sake,
Is surely safe. What shall I write?
_Brac._ I see--
A Moorish front, nor of such ill design!
Lapo, there 's one thing plain and positive;
Man seeks his own good at the whole world's cost.
What? If to lead our troops, stand forth out chiefs,
And hold our fate, and see us at their beck,
Yet render up the charge when peace return,
Have ever proved too much for Florentines,
Even for the best and bravest of ourselves--
If in the struggle when the soldier's sword
Should sink its point before the statist's pen,
And the calm head replace the violent hand,
Virtue on virtue still have fallen away
Before ambition with unvarying fate,
Till Florence' self at last in bitterness
Be forced to own such falls the natural end,
And, sparing further to expose her sons
To a vain strife and profitless disgrace,
Declare, "The foreigner, one not my child,
Shall henceforth lead my troops, reach height by height
The glory, then descend into the shame;
So shall rebellion be less guilt in him,
And punishment the easier task for me:"
--If on the best of us such brand she set,
Can I suppose an utter alien here,
This Luria, our inevitable foe,
Confessed a mercenary and a Moor,
Born free from many ties that bind the rest
Of common faith in Heaven or hope on earth,
No past with us, no future,--such a spirit
Shall hold the path from which our stanchest broke,
Stand firm where every famed precursor fell?
My Lapo, I will frankly say, these proofs
So duly noted of the man's intent,
Are for the doting fools at home, not me.
The charges here, they may be true or false:
--What is set down? Errors and oversights,
A dallying interchange of courtesies
With Pisa's General,--all that, hour by hour,
Puccio's pale discontent has furnished us,
Of petulant speeches, inconsiderate acts,
Now overhazard, overcaution now;
Even that he loves this lady who believes
She outwits Florence, and whom Florence posted
By my procurement here, to spy on me,
Lest I one minute lose her from my sight--
She who remembering her whole House's fall,
That nest of traitors strangled in the birth,
Now labors to make Luria (poor device
As plain) the instrument of her revenge!
--That she is ever at his ear to prompt
Inordinate conceptions of his worth,
Exorbitant belief in worth's reward,
And after, when sure disappointment follows,
Proportionable rage at such a wrong--
Why, all these reasons, while I urge them most,
Weigh with me less than least; as nothing weigh.
Upon that broad man's-heart of his, I go:
On what I know must be, yet while I live
Shall never be, because I live and know.
Brute-force shall not rule Florence! Intellect
May rule her, bad or good as chance supplies:
But intellect it shall be, pure if bad,
And intellect's tradition so kept up!
Till the good come--'t was intellect that ruled,
Not brute-force bringing from the battlefield
The attributes of wisdom, foresight's graces
We lent it there to lure its grossness on;
All which it took for earnest and kept safe
To show against us in our market-place,
Just as the plumes and tags and swordsman's-gear
(Fetched from the camp where, at their foolish best,
When all was done they frightened nobody)
Perk in our faces in the street, forsooth,
With our own warrant and allowance. No!
The whole procedure's overcharged,--its end
In too strict keeping with the bad first step.
To conquer Pisa was sheer inspiration?
Well then, to perish for a single fault,
Let that be simple justice! There, my Lapo!
A Moorish front ill suits our Duomo's body:
Blot it out--and bid Luria's sentence come!
(LURIA, _who, with_ DOMIZIA, _has entered unobserved
at the close of the last phrase, now advances_.)
_Luria._ And Luria, Luria, what of Luria now?
_Brac._ Ah, you so close, sir? Lady Domizia too?
I said it needs must be a busy moment
For one like you; that you were now i' the thick
Of your duties, doubtless, while we idlers sat ...
_Lur._ No--in that paper,--it was in that paper
What you were saving!
_Brac._ Oh--my day's despatch!
I censure you to Florence: will you see?
_Lur._ See your despatch, your last, for the first time?
Well, if I should, now? For in truth, Domizia,
He would be forced to set about another,
In his sly cool way, the true Florentine,
To mention that important circumstance.
So, while he wrote I should gain time, such time!
Do not send this!
_Brac._ And wherefore?
_Lur._ These Lucchese
Are not arrived--they never will arrive!
And I must fight to-day, arrived or not,
And I shall beat Tiburzio, that is sure:
And then will be arriving his Lucchese,
But slowly, oh so slowly, just in time
To look upon my battle from the hills,
Like a late moon, of use to nobody!
And I must break my battle up, send forth,
Surround on this side, hold in check on that.
Then comes to-morrow, we negotiate,
You make me send for fresh instructions home,
--Incompleteness, incompleteness!
_Brac._ Ah, we scribes!
Why, I had registered that very point,
The non-appearance of our foes' ally,
As a most happy fortune; both at once
Were formidable: singly faced, each falls.
_Lur._ So, no great battle for my Florentines!
No crowning deed, decisive and complete,
For all of them, the simple as the wise,
Old, young, alike, that do not understand
Our wearisome pedantic art of war,
By which we prove retreat may be success,
Delay--best speed,--half loss, at times,--whole gain:
They want results: as if it were their fault!
And you, with warmest wish to be my friend,
Will not be able now to simply say
"Your servant has performed his task--enough!
You ordered, he has executed: good!
Now walk the streets in holiday attire,
Congratulate your friends, till noon strikes fierce,
Then form bright groups beneath the Duomo's shade!"
No, you will have to argue and explain,
Persuade them, all is not so ill in the end,
Tease, tire them out! Arrive, arrive, Lucchese!
_Domizia._ Well, you will triumph for the past enough,
Whatever be the present chance; no service
Falls to the ground with Florence: she awaits
Her savior, will receive him fittingly.
_Lur._ Ah, Braccio, you know Florence! Will she, think you,
Receive one ... what means "fittingly receive"?
--Receive compatriots, doubtless--I am none:
And yet Domizia promises so much!
_Brac._ Kind women still give men a woman's prize.
I know not o'er which gate most boughs will arch.
Nor if the Square will wave red flags or blue.
I should have judged, the fullest of rewards
Our state gave Luria, when she made him chief
Of her whole force, in her best captain's place.
_Lur._ That, my reward? Florence on my account
Relieved Ser Puccio?--mark you, my reward!
And Puccio's having all the fight's true joy--
Goes here and there, gets close, may fight, himself,
While I must order, stand aloof, o'ersee.
That was my calling, there was my true place!
I should have felt, in some one over me,
Florence impersonate, my visible head,
As I am over Puccio,--taking life
Directly from her eye! They give me you:
But do you cross me, set me half to work?
I enjoy nothing--though I will, for once!
Decide, shall we join battle? may I wait?
_Brac._ Let us compound the matter; wait till noon:
Then, no arrival,--
_Lur._ Ah, noon comes too fast!
I wonder, do you guess why I delay
Involuntarily the final blow
As long as possible? Peace follows it!
Florence at peace, and the calm studious heads
Come out again, the penetrating eyes;
As if a spell broke, all 's resumed, each art
You boast, more vivid that it slept awhile.
'Gainst the glad heaven, o'er the white palace-front
The interrupted scaffold climbs anew;
The walls are peopled by the painter's brush;
The statue to its niche ascends to dwell.
The present noise and trouble have retired
And left the eternal past to rule once more;
You speak its speech and read its records plain,
Greece lives with you, each Roman breathes your friend:
But Luria--where will then be Luria's place?
_Dom._ Highest in honor, for that past's own sake,
Of which his actions, sealing up the sum
By saving all that went before from wreck,
Will range as part, with which be worshipped too.
_Lur._ Then I may walk and watch you in your streets,
Lead the smooth life my rough life helps no more,
So different, so new, so beautiful--
Nor fear that you will tire to see parade
The club that slew the lion, now that crooks
And shepherd-pipes come into use again?
For very lone and silent seems my East
In its drear vastness: still it spreads, and still
No Braccios, no Domizias anywhere--
Not ever more! Well, well, to-day is ours!
_Dom._ [_To_ BRAC.] Should he not have been one of us?
_Lur._ Oh, no!
Not one of you, and so escape the thrill
Of coming into you, of changing thus,--
Feeling a soul grow on me that restricts
The boundless unrest of the savage heart!
The sea heaves up, hangs loaded o'er the land,
Breaks there and buries its tumultuous strength;
Horror, and silence, and a pause awhile:
Lo, inland glides the gulf-stream, miles away,
In rapture of assent, subdued and still,
'Neath those strange banks, those unimagined skies.
Well, 't is not sure the quiet lasts forever!
Your placid heads still find rough hands new work;
Some minute's chance--there comes the need of mine:
And, all resolved on, I too hear at last.
Oh, you must find some use for me, Ser Braccio!
You hold my strength; 't were best dispose of it:
What you created, see that you find food for--
I shall be dangerous else!
_Brac._ How dangerous, sir?
_Lur._ There are so many ways, Domizia warns me,
And one with half the power that I possess,
--Grows very formidable! Do you doubt?
Why, first, who holds the army ...
_Dom._ While we talk,
Morn wears; we keep you from your proper place,
The field.
_Lur._ Nay, to the field I move no more;
My part is done, and Puccio's may begin:
I cannot trench upon his province longer
With any face.--You think yourselves so safe?
Why, see--in concert with Tiburzio, now--
One could ...
_Dom._ A trumpet!
_Lur._ My Lucchese at last!
Arrived, as sure as Florence stands! Your leave! [_Springs out._
_Dom._ How plainly is true greatness charactered
By such unconscious sport as Luria's here,
Strength sharing least the secret of itself!
Be it with head that schemes or hand that acts,
Such save the world which none but they could save,
Yet think whate'er they did, that world could do.
_Brac._ Yes: and how worthy note, that these same great ones
In hand or head, with such unconsciousness
And all its due entailed humility,
Should never shrink, so far as I perceive,
From taking up whatever tool there be
Effects the whole world's safety or mishap,
Into their mild hands as a thing of course!
The statist finds it natural to lead
The mob who might as easily lead him--
The captain marshals troops born skilled in war--
Statist and captain verily believe!
While we poor scribes ... you catch me thinking now,
That I shall in this very letter write
What none of you are able! To it, Lapo! [DOMIZIA _goes._
This last worst all-affected childish fit
Of Luria's, this be-praised unconsciousness,
Convinces me; the past was no child's play:
It was a man beat Pisa,--not a child.
All 's mere dissimulation--to remove
The fear, he best knows we should entertain.
The utmost danger was at hand. Is 't written?
Now make a duplicate, lest this should fail,
And speak your fullest on the other side.
_Sec._ I noticed he was busily repairing
My half-effacement of his Duomo sketch,
And, while he spoke of Florence, turned to it,
As the Mage Negro king to Christ the babe.
I judge his childishness the mere relapse
To boyhood of a man who has worked lately,
And presently will work, so, meantime, plays:
Whence, more than ever I believe in him.
_Brac._ [_After a pause._] The sword! At best, the soldier, as he
says,
In Florence--the black face, the barbarous name,
For Italy to boast her show of the age,
Her man of men!--To Florence with each letter!
ACT II
NOON
_Dom._ Well, Florence, shall I reach thee, pierce thy heart
Through all its safeguards? Hate is said to help--
Quicken the eye, invigorate the arm;
And this my hate, made up of many hates,
Might stand in scorn of visible instrument,
And will thee dead: yet do I trust it not.
Nor man's devices nor Heaven's memory
Of wickedness forgot on earth so soon,
But thy own nature,--hell and thee I trust,
To keep thee constant in that wickedness,
Where my revenge may meet thee. Turn aside
A single step, for gratitude or shame,--
Grace but this Luria,--this wild mass of rage
I have prepared to launch against thee now,--
With other payment than thy noblest found,--
Give his desert for once its due reward,--
And past thee would my sure destruction roll.
But thou, who mad'st our House thy sacrifice,
It cannot be thou wilt except this Moor
From the accustomed fate of zeal and truth:
Thou wilt deny his looked-for recompense,
And then--I reach thee. Old and trained, my sire
Could bow down on his quiet broken heart,
Die awe-struck and submissive, when at last
The strange blow came for the expected wreath;
And Porzio passed in blind bewilderment
To exile, never to return,--they say,
Perplexed in his frank simple honest soul,
As if some natural law had changed,--how else
Could Florence, on plain fact pronouncing thus,
Judge Porzio's actions worthy such reward?
But Berto, with the ever-passionate pulse,
--Oh that long night, its dreadful hour on hour,
In which no way of getting his fair fame
From their inexplicable charges free,
Was found, save pouring forth the impatient blood
To show its color whether false or no!
My brothers never had a friend like me
Close in their need to watch the time, then speak,
--Burst with a wakening laughter on their dream,
Cry, "Florence was all falseness, so, false here!"
And show them what a simple task remained--
To leave dreams, rise, and punish in God's name
The city wedded to the wickedness.
None stood by them as I by Luria stand.
So, when the stranger cheated of his due
Turns on thee as his rapid nature bids,
Then, Florence, think, a hireling at thy throat
For the first outrage, think who bore thy last,
Yet mutely in forlorn obedience died!
He comes--his friend--black faces in the camp
Where moved those peerless brows and eyes of old.
(_Enter_ LURIA _and_ HUSAIN.)
Well, and the movement--is it as you hope?
'T is Lucca?
_Lur._ Ah, the Pisan trumpet merely!
Tiburzio's envoy, I must needs receive.
_Dom._ Whom I withdraw before; though if I lingered
You could not wonder, for my time fleets fast.
The overtaking night brings such reward!
And where will then be room for me? Yet, praised,
Remember who was first to promise praise,
And envy those who also can perform! [_Goes._
_Lur._ This trumpet from the Pisans?--
_Husain._ In the camp;
A very noble presence--Braccio's visage
On Puccio's body--calm and fixed and good;
A man I seem as I had seen before:
Most like, it was some statue had the face.
_Lur._ Admit him! This will prove the last delay.
_Hus._ Ay, friend, go on, and die thou going on!
Thou heard'st what the grave woman said but now:
To-night rewards thee. That is well to hear;
But stop not therefore: hear it, and go on!
_Lur._ Oh, their reward and triumph and the rest
They round me in the ears with, all day long?
All that, I never take for earnest, friend!
Well would it suit us,--their triumphal arch
Or storied pillar,--thee and me, the Moors!
But gratitude in those Italian eyes--
That, we shall get?
_Hus._ It is too cold an air.
Our sun rose out of yonder mound of mist:
Where is he now? So, I trust none of them.
_Lur._ Truly?
_Hus._ I doubt and fear. There stands a wall
'Twixt our expansive and explosive race
And those absorbing, concentrating men.
They use thee.
_Lur._ And I feel it, Husain! yes,
And care not--yes, an alien force like mine
Is only called to play its part outside
Their different nature; where its sole use seems
To fight with and keep off an adverse force,
As alien,--which repelled, mine too withdraws:
Inside, they know not what to do with me.
Thus I have told them laughingly and oft,
But longsince am prepared to learn the worst.
_Hus._ What is the worst?
_Lur._ I will forestall them, Husain,
Will speak the destiny they dare not speak--
Banish myself before they find the heart.
I will be first to say, "The work rewards!
I know, for all your praise, my use is over,
So may it prove!--meanwhile 't is best I go,
Go carry safe my memories of you all
To other scenes of action, newer lands."--
Thus leaving them confirmed in their belief
They would not easily have tired of me.
You think this hard to say?
_Hus._ Say or not say,
So thou but go, so they but let thee go!
This hating people, that hate each the other,
And in one blandness to us Moors unite--
Locked each to each like slippery snakes, I say,
Which still in all their tangles, hissing tongue
And threatening tail, ne'er do each other harm;
While any creature of a better blood,
They seem to fight for, while they circle safe
And never touch it,--pines without a wound,
Withers away beside their eyes and breath.
See thou, if Puccio come not safely out
Of Braccio's grasp, this Braccio sworn his foe,
As Braccio safely from Domizia's toils
Who hates him most! But thou, the friend of all,
... Come out of them!
_Lur._ The Pisan trumpet now!
_Hus._ Breathe free--it is an enemy, no friend! [_Goes._
_Lur._ He keeps his instincts, no new culture mars
Their perfect use in him; just so the brutes
Rest not, are anxious without visible cause,
When change is in the elements at work,
Which man's trained senses fail to apprehend.
But here,--he takes the distant chariot-wheel
For thunder, festal flame for lightning's flash,
The finer traits of cultivated life
For treachery and malevolence: I see!
(_Enter_ TIBURZIO.)
_Lur._ Quick, sir, your message! I but wait your message
To sound the charge. You bring no overture
For truce?--I would not, for your General's sake,
You spoke of truce: a time to fight is come,
And, whatsoe'er the fight's event, he keeps
His honest soldier's-name to heat me with,
Or leaves me all himself to beat, I trust!
_Tiburzio._ I am Tiburzio.
_Lur._ You? 'T is--yes ... Tiburzio!
You were the last to keep the ford i' the valley
From Puccio, when I threw in succors there!
Why, I was on the heights--through the defile
Ten minutes after, when the prey was lost!
You wore an open skull-cap with a twist
Of water-reeds--the plume being hewn away;
While I drove down my battle from the heights,
I saw with my own eyes!
_Tib._ And you are Luria
Who sent my cohort, that laid down its arms
In error of the battle-signal's sense,
Back safely to me at the critical time--
One of a hundred deeds. I know you! Therefore
To none but you could I ...
_Lur._ No truce, Tiburzio!
_Tib._ Luria, you know the peril imminent
On Pisa,--that you have us in the toils,
Us her last safeguard, all that intercepts
The rage of her implacablest of foes
From Pisa: if we fall to-day, she falls.
Though Lucca will arrive, yet, 't is too late.
You have so plainly here the best of it,
That you must feel, brave soldier as you are,
How dangerous we grow in this extreme,
How truly formidable by despair.
Still, probabilities should have their weight:
The extreme chance is ours, but, that chance failing,
You win this battle. Wherefore say I this?
To be well apprehended when I add,
This danger absolutely comes from you.
Were you, who threaten thus, a Florentine ...
_Lur._ Sir, I am nearer Florence than her sons.
I can, and have perhaps obliged the State,
Nor paid a mere son's duty.
_Tib._ Even so.
Were you the son of Florence, yet endued
With all your present nobleness of soul,
No question, what I must communicate
Would not detach you from her.
_Lur._ Me, detach?
_Tib._ Time urges. You will ruin presently
Pisa, you never knew, for Florence' sake
You think you know. I have from time to time
Made prize of certain secret missives sent
From Braccio here, the Commissary, home:
And knowing Florence otherwise, I piece
The entire chain out, from these its scattered links.
Your trial occupies the Signory;
They sit in judgment on your conduct now.
When men at home inquire into the acts
Which in the field e'en foes appreciate ...
Brief, they are Florentines! You, saving them,
Seek but the sure destruction saviors find.
_Lur._ Tiburzio!
_Tib._ All the wonder is of course.
I am not here to teach you, nor direct,
Only to loyally apprise--scarce that.
This is the latest letter, sealed and safe,
As it left here an hour ago. One way
Of two thought free to Florence, I command.
The duplicate is on its road; but this,--
Read it, and then I shall have more to say.
_Lur._ Florence!
_Tib._ Now, were yourself a Florentine,
This letter, let it hold the worst it can,
Would be no reason you should fall away.
The mother city is the mother still,
And recognition of the children's service
Her own affair; reward--there 's no reward!
But you are bound by quite another tie.
Nor nature shows, nor reason, why at first
A foreigner, born friend to all alike,
Should give himself to any special State
More than another, stand by Florence' side
Rather than Pisa; 't is as fair a city
You war against, as that you fight for--famed
As well as she in story, graced no less
With noble heads and patriotic hearts:
Nor to a stranger's eye would either cause,
Stripped of the cumulative loves and hates
Which take importance from familiar view,
Stand as the right and sole to be upheld.
Therefore, should the preponderating gift
Of love and trust, Florence was first to throw,
Which made you hers, not Pisa's, void the scale,--
Old ties dissolving, things resume their place,
And all begins again. Break seal and read!
At least let Pisa offer for you now!
And I, as a good Pisan, shall rejoice,
Though for myself I lose, in gaining you,
This last fight and its opportunity;
The chance it brings of saying Pisa yet,
Or in the turn of battle dying so
That shame should want its extreme bitterness.
_Lur._ Tiburzio, you that fight for Pisa now
As I for Florence ... say my chance were yours!
You read this letter, and you find ... no, no!
Too mad!
_Tib._ I read the letter, find they purpose
When I have crushed their foe, to crush me: well?
_Lur._ You, being their captain, what is it you do?
_Tib._ Why, as it is, all cities are alike;
As Florence pays you, Pisa will pay me.
I shall be as belied, whate'er the event,
As you, or more: my weak head, they will say
Prompted this last expedient, my faint heart
Entailed on them indelible disgrace,
Both which defects ask proper punishment.
Another tenure of obedience, mine!
You are no son of Pisa's: break and read!
_Lur._ And act on what I read? What act were fit?
If the firm-fixed foundation of my faith
In Florence, who to me stands for mankind,
--If that break up and, disimprisoning
From the abyss ... Ah friend, it cannot be!
You may be very sage, yet--all the world
Having to fail, or your sagacity,
You do not wish to find yourself alone!
What would the world be worth? Whose love be sure?
The world remains: you are deceived!
_Tib._ Your hand!
I lead the vanguard.--If you fall, beside,
The better: I am left to speak! For me,
This was my duty, nor would I rejoice
If I could help, it misses its effect;
And after all you will look gallantly
Found dead here with that letter in your breast.
_Lur._ Tiburzio--I would see these people once
And test them ere I answer finally!
At your arrival let the trumpet sound:
If mine return not then the wonted cry
It means that I believe--am Pisa's!
_Tib._ Well! [_Goes._
_Lur._ My heart will have it he speaks true! My blood
Beats close to this Tiburzio as a friend.
If he had stept into my watch-tent, night
And the wild desert full of foes around,
I should have broke the bread and given the salt
Secure, and, when my hour of watch was done,
Taken my turn to sleep between his knees
Safe in the untroubled brow and honest cheek.
Oh world, where all things pass and naught abides,
Oh life, the long mutation--is it so?
Is it with life as with the body's change?
--Where, e'en though better follow, good must pass,
Nor manhood's strength can mate with boyhood's grace,
Nor age's wisdom, in its turn, find strength,
But silently the first gift dies away,
And though the new stays, never both at once.
Life's time of savage instinct o'er with me,
It fades and dies away, past trusting more,
As if to punish the ingratitude
With which I turned to grow in these new lights,
And learned to look with European eyes.
Yet it is better, this cold certain way,
Where Braccio's brow tells nothing, Puccio's mouth,
Domizia's eyes reject the searcher: yes!
For on their calm sagacity I lean,
Their sense of right, deliberate choice of good,
Sure, as they know my deeds, they deal with me.
Yes, that is better--that is best of all!
Such faith stays when mere wild belief would go.
Yes--when the desert creature's heart, at fault
Amid the scattering tempest's pillared sands,
Betrays its step into the pathless drift--
The calm instructed eye of man holds fast
By the sole bearing of the visible star,
Sure that when slow the whirling wreck subside,
The boundaries, lost now, shall be found again,--
The palm-trees and the pyramid over all.
Yes: I trust Florence: Pisa is deceived.
(_Enter_ BRACCIO, PUCCIO, _and_ DOMIZIA.)
_Brac._ Noon's at an end: no Lucca? You must fight.
_Lur._ Do you remember ever, gentle friends,
I am no Florentine?
_Dom._ It is yourself
Who still are forcing us, importunately,
To bear in mind what else we should forget.
_Lur._ For loss!--for what I lose in being none!
No shrewd man, such as you yourselves respect,
But would remind you of the stranger's loss
In natural friends and advocates at home,
Hereditary loves, even rivalships
With precedent for honor and reward.
Still, there's a gain, too! If you take it so,
The stranger's lot has special gain as well.
Do you forget there was my own far East
I might have given away myself to, once,
As now to Florence, and for such a gift,
Stood there like a descended deity?
There, worship waits us: what is it waits here?
[_Shows the letter_.
See! Chance has put into my hand the means
Of knowing what I earn, before I work.
Should I fight better, should I fight the worse,
With payment palpably before me? See!
Here lies my whole reward! Best learn it now
Or keep it for the end's entire delight?
_Brac._ If you serve Florence as the vulgar serve,
For swordsman's-pay alone,--break seal and read!
In that case, you will find your full desert.
_Lur._ Give me my one last happy moment, friends!
You need me now, and all the graciousness
This letter can contain will hardly balance
The after-feeling that you need no more.
This moment ... oh, the East has use with you!
Its sword still flashes--is not flung aside
With the past praise, in a dark corner yet!
How say you? 'Tis not so with Florentines--
Captains of yours: for them, the ended war
Is but a first step to the peace begun:
He who did well in war, just earns the right
To begin doing well in peace, you know:
And certain my precursors,--would not such
Look to themselves in such a chance as mine,
Secure the ground they trod upon, perhaps?
For I have heard, by fits, or seemed to hear,
Of strange mishap, mistake, ingratitude,
Treachery even. Say that one of you
Surmised this letter carried what might turn
To harm hereafter, cause him prejudice:
What would he do?
_Dom._ [_Hastily._] Thank God and take revenge!
Hurl her own force against the city straight!
And, even at the moment when the foe
Sounded defiance ...
[TIBURZIO'S _trumpet sounds in the distance_.
_Lur._ Ah, you Florentines!
So would you do? Wisely for you, no doubt!
My simple Moorish instinct bids me clench
The obligation you relieve me from,
Still deeper! [_To_ PUC.] Sound our answer, I should say.
And thus:--[_Tearing the paper._]--The battle! That solves every
doubt.
ACT III
AFTERNOON
PUCCIO, _as making a report to_ JACOPO.
_Puc._ And here, your captain must report the rest;
For, as I say, the main engagement over
And Luria's special part in it performed,
How could a subaltern like me expect
Leisure or leave to occupy the field
And glean what dropped from his wide harvesting?
I thought, when Lucca at the battle's end
Came up, just as the Pisan centre broke,
That Luria would detach me and prevent
The flying Pisans seeking what they found,
Friends in the rear, a point to rally by.
But no, more honorable proved my post!
I had the august captive to escort
Safe to our camp; some other could pursue,
Fight, and be famous; gentler chance was mine--
Tiburzio's wounded spirit must be soothed!
He's in the tent there.
_Jacopo._ Is the substance down?
I write--"The vanguard beaten and both wings
In full retreat, Tiburzio prisoner"--
And now,--" That they fell back and formed again
On Lucca's coming." Why then, after all,
'Tis half a victory, no conclusive one?
_Puc._ Two operations where a sole had served.
_Jac._ And Luria's fault was--?
_Puc._ Oh, for fault--not much!
He led the attack, a thought impetuously,
--There's commonly more prudence; now, he seemed
To hurry measures, otherwise well judged.
By over-concentrating strength at first
Against the enemy's van, both wings escaped:
That's reparable, yet it is a fault.
(_Enter_ BRACCIO.)
_Jac._ As good as a full victory to Florence,
With the advantage of a fault beside--
What is it, Puccio?--that by pressing forward
With too impetuous ...
_Brac._ The report anon!
Thanks, sir--you have elsewhere a charge, I know.
[PUCCIO _goes_.
There's nothing done but I would do again;
Yet, Lapo, it may be the past proves nothing,
And Luria has kept faithful to the close.
_Jac._ I was for waiting.
_Brac._ Yes: so was not I.
He could not choose but tear that letter--true!
Still, certain of his tones, I mind, and looks:--
You saw, too, with a fresher soul than I.
So, Porzio seemed an injured man, they say!
Well, I have gone upon the broad, sure ground.
(_Enter_ LURIA, PUCCIO, _and_ DOMIZIA.)
_Lur._ [_To_ PUC.] Say, at his pleasure I will see Tiburzio!
All's at his pleasure.
_Dom._ [_To_ LUR.] Were I not forewarned
You would reject, as you do constantly,
Praise,--I might tell you how you have deserved
Of Florence by this last and crowning feat:
But words offend.
_Lur._ Nay, you may praise me now.
I want instruction every hour, I find,
On points where once I saw least need of it;
And praise, I have been used to slight perhaps,
Seems scarce so easily dispensed with now.
After a battle, half one's strength is gone;
The glorious passion in us once appeased,
Our reason's calm cold dreadful voice begins.
All justice, power and beauty scarce appear
Monopolized by Florence, as of late,
To me, the stranger: you, no doubt, may know
Why Pisa needs must bear her rival's yoke,
And peradventure I grow nearer you,
For I, too, want to know and be assured.
When a cause ceases to reward itself,
Its friend seeks fresh sustainments; praise in one,
And here stand you--you, lady, praise me well.
But yours--(your pardon)--is unlearnèd praise.
To the motive, the endeavor, the heart's self.
Your quick sense looks: you crown and call aright
The soul o' the purpose, ere 'tis shaped as act,
Takes flesh i' the world, and clothes itself a king.
But when the act comes, stands for what 'tis worth,
--Here's Puccio, the skilled soldier, he's my judge!
Was all well, Puccio?
_Puc._ All was ... must be well:
If we beat Lucca presently, as doubtless ...
--No, there's no doubt, we must--all was well done.
_Lur._ In truth? Still you are of the trade, my Puccio!
You have the fellow-craftsman's sympathy.
There's none cares, like a fellow of the craft,
For the all unestimated sum of pains
That go to a success the world can see:
They praise then, but the best they never know
--While you know! So, if envy mix with it,
Hate even, still the bottom-praise of all,
Whatever be the dregs, that drop's pure gold!
--For nothing's like it; nothing else records
Those daily, nightly drippings in the dark
Of the heart's blood, the world lets drop away
Forever--so, pure gold that praise must be!
And I have yours, my soldier! yet the best
Is still to come. There's one looks on apart
Whom all refers to, failure or success;
What's done might be our best, our utmost work,
And yet inadequate to serve his need.
Here's Braccio now, for Florence--here's our service--
Well done for us, seems it well done for him?
His chosen engine, tasked to its full strength
Answers the end? Should he have chosen higher?
Do we help Florence, now our best is wrought?
_Brac._ This battle, with the foregone services,
Saves Florence.
_Lur._ Why then, all is very well!
Here am I in the middle of my friends,
Who know me and who love me, one and all.
And yet ... 'tis like ... this instant while I speak
Is like the turning-moment of a dream
When ... Ah, you are not foreigners like me!
Well then, one always dreams of friends at home;
And always comes, I say, the turning-point
When something changes in the friendly eyes
That love and look on you ... so slight, so slight ...
And yet it tells you they are dead and gone,
Or changed and enemies, for all their words,
And all is mockery and a maddening show.
You now, so kind here, all you Florentines,
What is it in your eyes ... those lips, those brows ...
Nobody spoke it, yet I know it well!
Come now--this battle saves you, all's at end,
Your use of me is o'er, for good, for ill,--
Come now, what's done against me, while I speak,
In Florence? Come! I feel it in my blood,
My eyes, my hair, a voice is in my ears
That spite of all this smiling and soft speech
You are betraying me! What is it you do?
Have it your way, and think my use is over--
Think you are saved and may throw off the mask--
Have it my way, and think more work remains
Which I could do,--so, show you fear me not!
Or prudent be, or daring, as you choose,
But tell me--tell what I refused to know
At noon, lest heart should fail me! Well? That letter?
My fate is sealed at Florence! What is it?
_Brac._ Sir, I shall not deny what you divine.
It is no novelty for innocence
To be suspected, but a privilege:
The after certain compensation comes.
Charges, I say not whether false or true,
Have been preferred against you some time since,
Which Florence was bound, plainly, to receive,
And which are therefore undergoing now
The due investigation. That is all.
I doubt not but your innocence will prove
Apparent and illustrious, as to me,
To them this evening, when the trial ends.
_Lur._ My trial?
_Dom._ Florence, Florence to the end,
My whole heart thanks thee!
_Puc._ [_To_ BRAC.] What is "trial," sir?
It was not for a trial,--surely, no--
I furnished you those notes from time to time?
I held myself aggrieved--I am a man--
And I might speak,--ay, and speak mere truth, too,
And yet not mean at bottom of my heart
What should assist a--trial, do you say?
You should have told me!
_Dom._ Nay, go on, go on!
His sentence! Do they sentence him? What is it?
The block--wheel?
_Brac._ Sentence there is none as yet,
Nor shall I give my own opinion now
Of what it should be, or is like to be.
When it is passed, applaud or disapprove!
Up to that point, what is there to impugn?
_Lur._ They are right, then, to try me?
_Brac._ I assert,
Maintain and justify the absolute right
Of Florence to do all she can have done
In this procedure,--standing on her guard,
Receiving even services like yours
With utmost fit suspicious wariness.
In other matters, keep the mummery up!
Take all the experiences of all the world,
Each knowledge that broke through a heart to life,
Each reasoning which, to reach, burnt out a brain,
--In other cases, know these, warrant these,
And then dispense with these--'tis very well!
Let friend trust friend, and love demand love's like,
And gratitude be claimed for benefits,--
There's grace in that,--and when the fresh heart breaks,
The new brain proves a ruin, what of them?
Where is the matter of one moth the more
Singed in the candle, at a summer's end?
But Florence is no simple John or James
To have his toy, his fancy, his conceit
That he's the one excepted man by fate.
And, when fate shows him he's mistaken there,
Die with all good men's praise, and yield his place
To Paul and George intent to try their chance!
Florence exists because these pass away.
She's a contrivance to supply a type
Of man, which men's deficiencies refuse;
She binds so many, that she grows out of them--
Stands steady o'er their numbers, though they change
And pass away--there's always what upholds,
Always enough to fashion the great show.
As see, yon hanging city, in the sun,
Of shapely cloud substantially the same!
A thousand vapors rise and sink again,
Are interfused, and live their life and die,--
Yet ever hangs the steady show i' the air,
Under the sun's straight influence: that is well,
That is worth heaven should hold, and God should bless!
And so is Florence,--the unseen sun above,
Which draws and holds suspended all of us,
Binds transient vapors into a single cloud
Differing from each and better than they all.
And shall she dare to stake this permanence
On any one man's faith? Man's heart is weak,
And its temptations many: let her prove
Each servant to the very uttermost
Before she grant him her reward, I say!
_Dom._ And as for hearts she chances to mistake,
Wronged hearts, not destined to receive reward,
Though they deserve it, did she only know,
--What should she do for these?
_Brac._ What does she not?
Say, that she gives them but herself to serve!
Here's Luria--what had profited his strength,
When half an hour of sober fancying
Had shown him step by step the uselessness
Of strength exerted for strength's proper sake?
But the truth is, she did create that strength,
Draw to the end the corresponding means.
The world is wide--are we the only men?
Oh, for the time, the social purpose' sake,
Use words agreed on, bandy epithets,
Call any man the sole great wise and good!
But shall we therefore, standing by ourselves,
Insult our souls and God with the same speech?
There, swarm the ignoble thousands under him:
What marks us from the hundreds and the tens?
Florence took up, turned all one way the soul
Of Luria with its fires, and here he glows!
She takes me out of all the world as him,
Fixing my coldness till like ice it checks
The fire! So, Braccio, Luria, which is best?
_Lur._ Ah, brave me? And is this indeed the way
To gain your good word and sincere esteem?
Am I the baited animal that must turn
And fight his baiters to deserve their praise?
Obedience is mistake then? Be it so!
Do you indeed remember I stand here
The captain of the conquering army,--mine--
With all your tokens, praise and promise, ready
To show for what their names meant when you gave,
Not what you style them now you take away?
If I call in my troops to arbitrate,
And dash the first enthusiastic thrill
Of victory with this you menace now--
Commend to the instinctive popular sense,
My story first, your comment afterward,--
Will they take, think you, part with you or me?
If I say--I, the laborer they saw work,
Ending my work, ask pay, and find my lords
Have all this while provided silently
Against the day of pay and proving faith,
By what you call my sentence that's to come--
Will friends advise I wait complacently?
If I meet Florence half-way at their head,
What will you do, my mild antagonist?
_Brac._ I will rise up like fire, proud and triumphant
That Florence knew you thoroughly and by me,
And so was saved. "See, Italy," I'll say,
"The crown of our precautions! Here's a man
Was far advanced, just touched on the belief
Less subtle cities had accorded long;
But we were wiser: at the end comes this!"
And from that minute, where is Luria? Lost!
The very stones of Florence cry against
The all-exacting, naught-enduring fool,
Who thus resents her first probation, flouts
As if he, only, shone and cast no shade,
He, only, walked the earth with privilege
Against suspicion, free where angels fear:
He, for the first inquisitive mother's-word,
Must turn, and stand on his defence, forsooth!
Reward? You will not be worth punishment!
_Lur._ And Florence knew me thus! Thus I have lived,--
And thus you, with the clear fine intellect,
Braccio, the cold acute instructed mind,
Out of the stir, so calm and unconfused,
Reported me--how could you otherwise!
Ay?--and what dropped from you, just now, moreover?
Your information, Puccio?--Did your skill,
Your understanding sympathy approve
Such a report of me? Was this the end?
Or is even this the end? Can I stop here?
You, lady, with the woman's stand apart,
The heart to see with, past man's brain and eyes,
... I cannot fathom why you should destroy
The unoffending one, you call your friend--
Still, lessoned by the good examples here
Of friendship, 'tis but natural I ask--
Had you a further aim, in aught you urged,
Than your friend's profit--in all those instances
Of perfidy, all Florence wrought of wrong--
All I remember now for the first time?
_Dom._ I am a daughter of the Traversari,
Sister of Porzio and of Berto both,
So, have foreseen all that has come to pass.
I knew the Florence that could doubt their faith,
Must needs mistrust a stranger's--dealing them
Punishment, would deny him his reward.
And I believed, the shame they bore and died,
He would not bear, but live and fight against--
Seeing he was of other stuff than they.
_Lur._ Hear them! All these against one foreigner!
And all this while, where is, in the whole world,
To his good faith a single witness?
_Tib._ [_Who has entered unseen during the preceding dialogue._]
Here!
Thus I bear witness, not in word but deed.
I live for Pisa; she's not lost to-day
By many chances--much prevents from that!
Her army has been beaten, I am here,
But Lucca comes at last, one happy chance!
I rather would see Pisa three times lost
Than saved by any traitor, even by you;
The example of a traitor's happy fortune
Would bring more evil in the end than good;--
Pisa rejects the traitor, craves yourself!
I, in her name, resign forthwith to you
My charge,--the highest office, sword and shield!
You shall not, by my counsel, turn on Florence
Your army, give her calumny that ground--
Nor bring one soldier: be you all we gain!
And all she'll lose,--a head to deck some bridge,
And save the cost o' the crown should deck the head.
Leave her to perish in her perfidy,
Plague-stricken and stripped naked to all eyes,
A proverb and a by-word in all mouths!
Go you to Pisa! Florence is my place--
Leave me to tell her of the rectitude,
I, from the first, told Pisa, knowing it.
To Pisa!
_Dom._ Ah my Braccio, are you caught?
_Brac._ Puccio, good soldier and good citizen,
Whom I have ever kept beneath my eye,
Ready as fit, to serve in this event
Florence, who clear foretold it from the first--
Through me, she gives you the command and charge
She takes, through me, from him who held it late!
A painful trial, very sore, was yours:
All that could draw out, marshal in array
The selfish passions 'gainst the public good--
Slights, scorns, neglects, were heaped on you to hear:
And ever you did bear and bow the head!
It had been sorry trial, to precede
Your feet, hold up the promise of reward
For luring gleam; your footsteps kept the track
Through dark and doubt: take all the light at once!
Trial is over, consummation shines;
Well have you served, as well henceforth command!
_Puc._ No, no ... I dare not! I am grateful, glad;
But Luria--you shall understand he's wronged:
And he's my captain--this is not the way
We soldiers climb to fortune: think again!
The sentence is not even passed, beside!
I dare not: where's the soldier could?
_Lur._ Now, Florence--
Is it to be? You will know all the strength
O' the savage--to your neck the proof must go?
You will prove the brute nature? Ah, I see!
The savage plainly is impassible--
He keeps his calm way through insulting words,
Sarcastic looks, sharp gestures--one of which
Would stop you, fatal to your finer sense,
But if he stolidly advance, march mute
Without a mark upon his callous hide,
Through the mere brushwood you grow angry with,
And leave the tatters of your flesh upon,
--You have to learn that when the true bar comes,
The murk mid-forest, the grand obstacle,
Which when you reach, you give the labor up,
Nor dash on, but lie down composed before,
--He goes against it, like the brute he is:
It falls before him, or he dies in his course.
I kept my course through past ingratitude:
I saw--it does seem, now, as if I saw,
Could not but see, those insults as they fell,
--Ay, let them glance from off me, very like,
Laughing, perhaps, to think the quality
You grew so bold on, while you so despised
The Moor's dull mute inapprehensive mood,
Was saving you: I bore and kept my course.
Now real wrong fronts me: see if I succumb!
Florence withstands me? I will punish her.
At night my sentence will arrive, you say.
Till then I cannot, if I would, rebel
--Unauthorized to lay my office down,
Retaining my full power to will and do:
After--it is to see. Tiburzio, thanks!
Go; you are free: join Lucca! I suspend
All further operations till to-night.
Thank you, and for the silence most of all!
[_To_ BRAC.] Let my complacent bland accuser go
Carry his self-approving head and heart
Safe through the army which would trample him
Dead in a moment at my word or sign!
Go, sir, to Florence; tell friends what I say--
That while I wait my sentence, theirs waits them!
[_To_ DOM.] You, lady,--you have black Italian eyes!
I would be generous if I might: oh, yes--
For I remember how so oft you seemed
Inclined at heart to break the barrier down
Which Florence finds God built between us both.
Alas, for generosity! this hour
Asks retribution: bear it as you may,
I must--the Moor--the savage,--pardon you!
Puccio, my trusty soldier, see them forth!
ACT IV
EVENING
_Enter_ PUCCIO _and_ JACOPO.
_Puc._ What Luria will do? Ah, 'tis yours, fair sir,
Your and your subtle-witted master's part,
To tell me that; I tell you what he can.
_Jac._ Friend, you mistake my station: I observe
The game, watch how my betters play, no more.
_Puc._ But mankind are not pieces--there's your fault!
You cannot push them, and, the first move made,
Lean back and study what the next shall be,
In confidence that, when 'tis fixed upon,
You find just where you left them, blacks and whites:
Men go on moving when your hand's away.
You build, I notice, firm on Luria's faith
This whole time,--firmlier than I choose to build,
Who never doubted it--of old, that is--
With Luria in his ordinary mind.
But now, oppression makes the wise man mad:
How do I know he will not turn and stand
And hold his own against you, as he may?
Suppose he but withdraw to Pisa--well,--
Then, even if all happen to your wish,
Which is a chance ...
_Jac._ Nay--'twas an oversight,
Not waiting till the proper warrant came:
You could not take what was not ours to give.
But when at night the sentence really comes,
Our city authorizes past dispute
Luria's removal and transfers the charge,
You will perceive your duty and accept?
_Puc._ Accept what? muster-rolls of soldiers' names?
An army upon paper? I want men,
The hearts as well as hands--and where's a heart
But beats with Luria, in the multitude
I come from walking through by Luria's side?
You gave them Luria, set him thus to grow,
Head-like, upon their trunk; one heart feeds both,
They feel him there, live twice, and well know why.
--For they do know, if you are ignorant,
Who kept his own place and respected theirs,
Managed their sweat, yet never spared his blood.
All was your act: another might have served--
There's peradventure no such dearth of heads--
But you chose Luria: so, they grew one flesh,
And now, for nothing they can understand,
Luria removed, off is to roll the head;
The body's mine--much I shall do with it!
_Jac._ That's at the worst.
_Puc._ No--at the best, it is!
Best, do you hear? I saw them by his side.
Only we two with Luria in the camp
Are left that keep the secret? You think that?
Hear what I know: from rear to van, no heart
But felt the quiet patient hero there
Was wronged, nor in the moveless ranks an eye
But glancing told its fellow the whole story
Of that convicted silent knot of spies
Who passed through them to Florence; they might pass--
No breast but gladlier beat when free of such!
Our troops will catch up Luria, close him round,
Bear him to Florence as their natural lord,
Partake his fortune, live or die with him.
_Jac._ And by mistake catch up along with him
Puccio, no doubt, compelled in self despite
To still continue second in command!
_Puc._ No, sir, no second nor so fortunate!
Your tricks succeed with me too well for that!
I am as you have made me, live and die
To serve your end--a mere trained fighting-hack,
With words, you laugh at while they leave your mouth,
For my life's rule and ordinance of God!
I have to do my duty, keep my faith,
And earn my praise, and guard against my blame,
As I was trained. I shall accept your charge,
And fight against one better than myself,
Spite of my heart's conviction of his worth--
That, you may count on!--just as hitherto
I have gone on, persuaded I was wronged,
Slighted, insulted, terms we learn by rote,--
All because Luria superseded me--
Because the better nature, fresh-inspired,
Mounted above me to its proper place!
What mattered all the kindly graciousness,
The cordial brother's-bearing? This was clear--
I, once the captain, now was subaltern,
And so must keep complaining like a fool!
Go, take the curse of a lost soul, I say!
You neither play your puppets to the end,
Nor treat the real man,--for his realness' sake
Thrust rudely in their place,--with such regard
As might console them for their altered rank.
Me, the mere steady soldier, you depose
For Luria, and here's all your pet deserves!
Of what account, then, is your laughing-stock?
One word for all: whatever Luria does,
--If backed by his indignant troops he turn,
Revenge himself, and Florence go to ground,--
Or, for a signal everlasting shame,
He pardon you, simply seek better friends,
Side with the Pisans and Lucchese for change
--And if I, pledged to ingrates past belief,
Dare fight against a man such fools call false,
Who, inasmuch as he was true, fights me,--
Whichever way he win, he wins for worth,
For every soldier, for all true and good!
Sir, chronicling the rest, omit not this!
(_As they go, enter_ LURIA _and_ HUSAIN.)
_Hus._ Saw'st thou?--For they are gone! The world lies bare
Before thee, to be tasted, felt and seen
Like what it is, now Florence goes away!
Thou livest now, with men art man again!
Those Florentines were all to thee of old;
But Braccio, but Domizia, gone is each,
There lie beneath thee thine own multitudes!
Saw'st thou?
_Lur._ I saw.
_Hus._ Then, hold thy course, my king!
The years return. Let thy heart have its way:
Ah, they would play with thee as with all else,
Turn thee to use, and fashion thee anew,
Find out God's fault in thee as in the rest?
Oh watch, oh listen only to these fiends
Once at their occupation! Ere we know,
The free great heaven is shut, their stifling pall
Drops till it frets the very tingling hair,
So weighs it on our head,--and, for the earth,
Our common earth is tethered up and down,
Over and across--"here shalt thou move," they cry!
_Lur._ Ay, Husain?
_Hus._ So have they spoiled all beside!
So stands a man girt round with Florentines,
Priests, graybeards, Braccios, women, boys and spies,
All in one tale, all singing the same song,
How thou must house, and live at bed and board,
Take pledge and give it, go their every way,
Breathe to their measure, make thy blood beat time
With theirs--- or, all is nothing--thou art lost--
A savage, how shouldst thou perceive as they?
Feel glad to stand 'neath God's close naked hand!
Look up to it! Why, down they pull thy neck,
Lest it crush thee, who feel'st it and wouldst kiss,
Without their priests that needs must glove it first,
Lest peradventure flesh offend thy lip.
Love woman! Why, a very beast thou art!
Thou must ...
_Lur._ Peace, Husain!
_Hus._ Ay, but, spoiling all,
For all, else true things, substituting false,
That they should dare spoil, of all instincts, thine!
Should dare to take thee with thine instincts up,
Thy battle-ardors, like a ball of fire,
And class them and allow them place and play
So far, no farther--unabashed the while!
Thou with the soul that never can take rest--
Thou born to do, undo, and do again,
And never to be still,--wouldst thou make war?
Oh, that is commendable, just and right!
"Come over," say they, "have the honor due
In living out thy nature! Fight thy best:
It is to be for Florence, not thyself!
For thee, it were a horror and a plague;
For us, when war is made for Florence, see,
How all is changed: the fire that fed on earth
Now towers to heaven!"--
_Lur._ And what sealed up so long
My Husain's mouth?
_Hus._ Oh friend, oh lord--for me,
What am I?--I was silent at thy side,
Who am a part of thee. It is thy hand,
Thy foot that glows when in the heart fresh blood
Boils up, thou heart of me! Now, live again,
Again love as thou likest, hate as free!
Turn to no Braccios nor Domizias now,
To ask, before thy very limbs dare move,
If Florence' welfare be concerned thereby!
_Lur._ So clear what Florence must expect of me?
_Hus._ Both armies against Florence! Take revenge!
Wide, deep--to live upon, in feeling now,--
And, after live, in memory, year by year--
And, with the dear conviction, die at last!
She lies now at thy pleasure: pleasure have!
Their vaunted intellect that gilds our sense,
And blends with life, to show it better by,
--How think'st thou?--I have turned that light on them!
They called our thirst of war a transient thing;
"The battle-element must pass away
From life," they said, "and leave a tranquil world."
--Master, I took their light and turned it full
On that dull turgid vein they said would burst
And pass away; and as I looked on life,
Still everywhere I tracked this, though it hid
And shifted, lay so silent as it thought,
Changed shape and hue yet ever was the same.
Why, 't was all fighting, all their nobler life!
All work was fighting, every harm--defeat,
And every joy obtained--a victory!
Be not their dupe!
--Their dupe? That hour is past!
Here stand'st thou in the glory and the calm:
All is determined. Silence for me now!
[HUSAIN _goes._
_Lur._ Have I heard all?
_Dom._ [_Advancing from the background._] No, Luria, I remain!
Not from the motives these have urged on thee,
Ignoble, insufficient, incomplete,
And pregnant each with sure seeds of decay,
As failing of sustainment from thyself,
--Neither from low revenge, nor selfishness,
Nor savage lust of power, nor one, nor all,
Shalt thou abolish Florence! I proclaim
The angel in thee, and reject the sprites
Which ineffectual crowd about his strength,
And mingle with his work and claim a share!
Inconsciously to the augustest end
Thou hast arisen: second not in rank
So much as time, to him who first ordained
That Florence, thou art to destroy, should be.
Yet him a star, too, guided, who broke first
The pride of lonely power, the life apart,
And made the eminences, each to each,
Lean o'er the level world and let it lie
Safe from the thunder henceforth 'neath their tops;
So the few famous men of old combined,
And let the multitude rise underneath,
And reach them and unite--so Florence grew:
Braccio speaks true, it was well worth the price.
But when the sheltered many grew in pride
And grudged the station of the elected ones,
Who, greater than their kind, are truly great
Only in voluntary servitude--
Time was for thee to rise, and thou art here.
Such plague possessed this Florence: who can tell
The mighty girth and greatness at the heart
Of those so perfect pillars of the grove
She pulled down in her envy? Who as I,
The light weak parasite born but to twine
Round each of them and, measuring them, live?
My light love keeps the matchless circle safe,
My slender life proves what has passed away.
I lived when they departed; lived to cling
To thee, the mighty stranger; thou wouldst rise
And burst the thraldom, and avenge, I knew.
I have done nothing; all was thy strong bole.
But a bird's weight can break the infant tree
Which after holds an aery in its arms,
And 't was my care that naught should warp thy spire
From rising to the height; the roof is reached
O' the forest, break through, see extend the sky!
Go on to Florence, Luria! 'T is man's cause!
Fail thou, and thine own fall were least to dread:
Thou keepest Florence in her evil way,
Encouragest her sin so much the more--
And while the ignoble past is justified,
Thou all the surelier warp'st the future growth,
The chiefs to come, the Lurias yet unborn,
That, greater than thyself, are reached o'er thee
Who giv'st the vantage-ground their foes require,
As o'er my prostrate House thyself wast reached!
Man calls thee, God requites thee! All is said,
The mission of my House fulfilled at last:
And the mere woman, speaking for herself,
Reserves speech--it is now no woman's time.
[DOMIZIA _goes_.
_Lur._ Thus at the last must figure Luria, then!
Doing the various work of all his friends,
And answering every purpose save his own.
No doubt, 't is well for them to wish; but him--
After the exploit what were left? Perchance
A little pride upon the swarthy brow,
At having brought successfully to bear
'Gainst Florence' self her own especial arms,--
Her craftiness, impelled by fiercer strength
From Moorish blood than feeds the northern wit.
But after!--once the easy vengeance willed,
Beautiful Florence at a word laid low
--(Not in her domes and towers and palaces,
Not even in a dream, that outrage!)--low,
As shamed in her own eyes henceforth forever,
Low, for the rival cities round to laugh,
Conquered and pardoned by a hireling Moor!
--For him, who did the irreparable wrong,
What would be left, his life's illusion fled,--
What hope or trust in the forlorn wide world?
How strange that Florence should mistake me so!
Whence grew this? What withdrew her faith from me?
Some cause! These fretful-blooded children talk
Against their mother,--they are wronged, they say--
Notable wrongs her smile makes up again!
So, taking fire at each supposed offence,
They may speak rashly, suffer for their speech:
But what could it have been in word or deed
Thus injured me? Some one word spoken more
Out of my heart, and all had changed perhaps.
My fault, it must have been,--for, what gain they?
Why risk the danger? See, what I could do!
And my fault, wherefore visit upon them,
My Florentines? The notable revenge
I meditated! To stay passively.
Attend their summons, be as they dispose!
Why, if my very soldiers keep the rank,
And if my chieftains acquiesce, what then?
I ruin Florence, teach her friends mistrust,
Confirm her enemies in harsh belief,
And when she finds one day, as find she must,
The strange mistake, and how my heart was hers,
Shall it console me, that my Florentines
Walk with a sadder step, in graver guise,
Who took me with such frankness, praised me so,
At the glad outset? Had they loved me less,
They had less feared what seemed a change in me.
And after all, who did the harm? Not they!
How could they interpose with those old fools
I' the council? Suffer for those old fools' sake--
They, who made pictures of me, sang the songs
About my battles? Ah, we Moors get blind
Out of our proper world, where we can see!
The sun that guides is closer to us! There--
There, my own orb! He sinks from out the sky!
Why, there! a whole day has he blessed the land,
My land, our Florence all about the hills,
The fields and gardens, vineyards, olive-grounds,
All have been blest--and yet we Florentines,
With souls intent upon our battle here,
Found that he rose too soon, or set too late,
Gave us no vantage, or gave Pisa much--
Therefore we wronged him! Does he turn in ire
To burn the earth that cannot understand?
Or drop out quietly, and leave the sky,
His task once ended? Night wipes blame away.
Another morning from my East shall spring
And find all eyes at leisure, all disposed
To watch and understand its work, no doubt.
So, praise the new sun, the successor praise,
Praise the new Luria and forget the old!
[_Taking a phial from his breast._
--Strange! This is all I brought from my own land
To help me: Europe would supply the rest,
All needs beside, all other helps save one!
I thought of adverse fortune, battle lost,
The natural upbraiding of the loser,
And then this quiet remedy to seek
At end of the disastrous day. [_He drinks._
'T is sought!
This was my happy triumph-morning: Florence
Is saved: I drink this, and ere night,--die! Strange!
ACT V
NIGHT
LURIA _and_ PUCCIO
_Lur._ I thought to do this, not to talk this: well,
Such were my projects for the city's good,
To help her in attack or by defence.
Time, here as elsewhere, soon or late may take
Our foresight by surprise through chance and change;
But not a little we provide against
--If you see clear on every point.
_Puc._ Most clear.
_Lur._ Then all is said--not much, if you count words,
Yet to an understanding ear enough;
And all that my brief stay permits, beside.
Nor must you blame me, as I sought to teach
My elder in command, or threw a doubt
Upon the very skill, it comforts me
To know I leave,--your steady soldiership
Which never failed me: yet, because it seemed
A stranger's eye might haply note defect
That skill, through use and custom, over-looks--
I have gone into the old cares once more,
As if I had to come and save again
Florence--that May--that morning! 'T is night now.
Well--I broke off with?...
_Puc._ Of the past campaign
You spoke--of measures to be kept in mind
For future use.
_Lur._ True, so ... but, time--no time!
As well end here: remember this, and me!
Farewell now!
_Puc._ Dare I speak?
_Lur._ South o' the river--
How is the second stream called ... no,--the third?
_Puc._ Pesa.
_Lur._ And a stone's-cast from the fording-place,
To the east,--the little mount's name?
_Puc._ Lupo.
_Lur._ Ay!
Ay--there the tower, and all that side is safe!
With San Romano, west of Evola,
San Miniato, Scala, Empoli,
Five towers in all,--forget not!
_Puc._ Fear not me!
_Lur._--Nor to memorialize the Council now,
I' the easy hour, on those battalions' claim,
Who forced a pass by Staggia on the hills,
And kept the Sienese at check!
_Puc._ One word--
Sir, I must speak! That you submit yourself
To Florence' bidding, howsoe'er it prove,
And give up the command to me--is much,
Too much, perhaps: but what you tell me now,
Even will affect the other course you choose--
Poor as it may be, perils even that!
Refuge you seek at Pisa: yet these plans
All militate for Florence, all conclude
Your formidable work to make her queen
O' the country,--which her rivals rose against
When you began it,--which to interrupt,
Pisa would buy you off at any price!
You cannot mean to sue for Pisa's help,
With this made perfect and on record?
_Lur._ I--
At Pisa, and for refuge, do you say?
_Puc._ Where are you going, then? You must decide
On leaving us, a silent fugitive,
Alone, at night--you, stealing through our lines,
Who were this morning's Luria,--you escape
To painfully begin the world once more,
With such a past, as it had never been!
Where are you going?
_Lur._ Not so far, my Puccio,
But that I hope to hear, enjoy and praise
(If you mind praise from your old captain yet)
Each happy blow you strike for Florence!
_Puc._ Ay,
But ere you gain your shelter, what may come?
For see--though nothing 's surely known as yet,
Still--truth must out--I apprehend the worst.
If mere suspicion stood for certainty
Before, there 's nothing can arrest the step
Of Florence toward your ruin, once on foot.
Forgive her fifty times, it matters not!
And having disbelieved your innocence,
How can she trust your magnanimity?
You may do harm to her--why then, you will!
And Florence is sagacious in pursuit.
Have you a friend to count on?
_Lur._ One sure friend.
_Puc._ Potent?
_Lur._ All-potent.
_Puc._ And he is apprised?
_Lur._ He waits me.
_Puc._ So!--Then I, put in your place,
Making my profit of all done by you,
Calling your labors mine, reaping their fruit,
To this, the State's gift, now add yours beside--
That I may take as my peculiar store
These your instructions to work Florence good.
And if, by putting some few happily
In practice, I should both advantage her
And draw down honor on myself,--what then?
_Lur._ Do it, my Puccio! I shall know and praise!
_Puc._ Though so, men say, "mark what we gain by change
--A Puccio for a Luria!"
_Lur._ Even so!
_Puc._ Then, not for fifty hundred Florences
Would I accept one office save my own,
Fill any other than my rightful post
Here at your feet, my captain and my lord!
That such a cloud should break, such trouble be,
Ere a man settle, soul and body, down
Into his true place and take rest forever!
Here were my wise eyes fixed on your right hand,
And so the bad thoughts came and the worse words,
And all went wrong and painfully enough,--
No wonder,--till, the right spot stumbled on,
All the jar stops, and there is peace at once!
I am yours now,--a tool your right hand wields!
God's love, that I should live, the man I am,
On orders, warrants, patents and the like,
As if there were no glowing eye i' the world
To glance straight inspiration to my brain,
No glorious heart to give mine twice the beats!
For, see--my doubt, where is it?--fear? 't is flown!
And Florence and her anger are a tale
To scare a child! Why, half-a-dozen words
Will tell her, spoken as I now can speak,
Her error, my past folly--and all 's right,
And you are Luria, our great chief again!
Or at the worst--which worst were best of all--
To exile or to death I follow you!
_Lur._ Thanks, Puccio! Let me use the privilege
You grant me: if I still command you,--stay!
Remain here, my vicegerent, it shall be,
And not successor: let me, as of old,
Still serve the State, my spirit prompting yours--
Still triumph, one for both. There! Leave me now!
You cannot disobey my first command?
Remember what I spoke of Jacopo,
And what you promised to concert with him!
Send him to speak with me--nay, no farewell!
You shall be by me when the sentence comes.
[PUCCIO _goes_.
So, there 's one Florentine returns again!
Out of the genial morning company.
One face is left to take into the night
(_Enter_ JACOPO.)
_Jac._ I wait for your command, sir.
_Lur._ What, so soon?
I thank your ready presence and fair word.
I used to notice you in early days
As of the other species, so to speak,
Those watchers of the lives of us who act--
That weigh our motives, scrutinize our thoughts.
So, I propound this to your faculty
As you would tell me, were a town to take
... That is, of old. I am departing hence
Under these imputations; that is naught--
I leave no friend on whom they may rebound,
Hardly a name behind me in the land,
Being a stranger: all the more behooves
That I regard how altered were the case
With natives of the country, Florentines
On whom the like mischance should fall: the roots
O' the tree survive the ruin of the trunk--
No root of mine will throb, you understand.
But I had predecessors, Florentines,
Accused as I am now, and punished so--
The Traversari: you know more than I
How stigmatized they are and lost in shame.
Now Puccio, who succeeds me in command,
Both served them and succeeded, in due time;
He knows the way, holds proper documents,
And has the power to lay the simple truth
Before an active spirit, as I count yours:
And also there 's Tiburzio, my new friend,
Will, at a word, confirm such evidence,
He being the great chivalric soul we know.
I put it to your tact, sir--were 't not well,
--A grace, though but for contrast's sake, no more,--
If you who witness, and have borne a share
Involuntarily in my mischance,
Should, of your proper motion, set your skill
To indicate--that is, investigate
The right or wrong of what mischance befell
Those famous citizens, your countrymen?
Nay, you shall promise nothing: but reflect,
And if your sense of justice prompt you--good!
_Jac._ And if, the trial past, their fame stand clear
To all men's eyes, as yours, my lord, to mine--
Their ghosts may sleep in quiet satisfied!
For me, a straw thrown up into the air,
My testimony goes for a straw's worth.
I used to hold by the instructed brain,
And move with Braccio as my master-wind;
The heart leads surelier: I must move with you--
As greatest now, who ever were the best.
So, let the last and humblest of your servants
Accept your charge, as Braccio's heretofore,
And tender homage by obeying you! [JACOPO _goes_.
_Lur._ Another!--Luria goes not poorly forth.
If we could wait! The only fault 's with time;
All men become good creatures: but so slow!
(_Enter_ DOMIZIA.)
_Lur._ Ah, you once more?
_Dom._ Domizia, whom you knew,
Performed her task, and died with it. 'T is I,
Another woman, you have never known.
Let the past sleep now!
_Lur._ I have done with it.
_Dom._ How inexhaustibly the spirit grows!
One object, she seemed erewhile born to reach
With her whole energies and die content,--
So like a wall at the world's edge it stood,
With naught beyond to live for,--is that reached?--
Already are new undreamed energies
Outgrowing under, and extending farther
To a new object; there 's another world.
See! I have told the purpose of my life;
'T is gained: you are decided, well or ill--
You march on Florence, or submit to her--
My work is done with you, your brow declares.
But--leave you?--More of you seems yet to reach:
I stay for what I just begin to see.
_Lur._ So that you turn not to the past!
_Dom._ You trace
Nothing but ill in it--my selfish impulse,
Which sought its end and disregarded yours?
_Lur._ Speak not against your nature: best, each keep
His own--you, yours--most, now that I keep mine,
--At least, fall by it, having too weakly stood.
God's finger marks distinctions, all so fine,
We would confound: the lesser has its use,
Which, when it apes the greater, is foregone.
I, born a Moor, lived half a Florentine;
But, punished properly, can end, a Moor.
Beside, there's something makes me understand
Your nature: I have seen it.
_Dom._ Aught like mine?
_Lur._ In my own East ... if you would stoop and help
My barbarous illustration! It sounds ill;
Yet there's no wrong at bottom: rather, praise.
_Dom._ Well?
_Lur._ We have creatures there, which if you saw
The first time, you would doubtless marvel at
For their surpassing beauty, craft and strength.
And though it were a lively moment's shock
When you first found the purpose of forked tongues
That seem innocuous in their lambent play,
Yet, once made know such grace requires such guard,
Your reason soon would acquiesce, I think,
In wisdom which made all things for the best--
So, take them, good with ill, contentedly,
The prominent beauty with the latent sting,
I am glad to have seen you wondrous Florentines:
Yet ...
_Dom._ I am here to listen.
_Lur._ My own East!
How nearer God we were! He glows above
With scarce an intervention, presses close
And palpitatingly, his soul o'er ours:
We feel him, nor by painful reason know!
The everlasting minute of creation
Is felt there; now it is, as it was then;
All changes at his instantaneous will,
Not by the operation of a law
Whose maker is elsewhere at other work.
His hand is still engaged upon his world--
Man's praise can forward it, man's prayer suspend,
For is not God all-mighty? To recast
The world, erase old things and make them new,
What costs it Him? So, man breathes nobly there.
And inasmuch as feeling, the East's gift,
Is quick and transient--comes, and lo, is gone--
While Northern thought is slow and durable,
Surely a mission was reserved for me,
Who, born with a perception of the power
And use of the North's thought for us of the East,
Should have remained, turned knowledge to account,
Giving thought's character and permanence
To the too transitory feeling there--
Writing God's message plain in mortal words.
Instead of which, I leave my fated field
For this where such a task is needed least,
Where all are born consummate in the art
I just perceive a chance of making mine,--
And then, deserting thus my early post,
I wonder that the men I come among
Mistake me! There, how all had understood,
Still brought fresh stuff for me to stamp and keep,
Fresh instinct to translate them into law!
Me, who ...
_Dom._ Who here the greater task achieve,
More needful even: who have brought fresh stuff
For us to mould, interpret and prove right,--
New feeling fresh from God, which, could we know
O' the instant, where had been our need of it?
--Whose life re-teaches us what life should be,
What faith is, loyalty and simpleness,
All, once revealed but taught us so long since
That, having mere tradition of the fact,--
Truth copied falteringly from copies faint,
The early traits all dropped away,--we said
On sight of faith like yours, "So looks not faith
We understand, described and praised before."
But still, the feat was dared; and though at first
It suffered from our haste, yet trace by trace
Old memories reappear, old truth returns,
Our slow thought does its work, and all's reknown.
Oh noble Luria! What you have decreed
I see not, but no animal revenge.
No brute-like punishment of bad by worse--
It cannot be, the gross and vulgar way
Traced for me by convention and mistake,
Has gained that calm approving eye and brow!
Spare Florence, after all! Let Luria trust
To his own soul, he whom I trust with mine!
_Lur._ In time!
_Dom._ How, Luria?
_Lur._ It is midnight now,
And they arrive from Florence with my fate.
_Dom._ I hear no step.
_Lur._ I feel one, as you say.
(_Enter_ HUSAIN.)
_Hus._ The man returned from Florence!
_Lur._ As I knew.
_Hus._ He seeks thee.
_Lur._ And I only wait for him.
Aught else?
_Hus._ A movement of the Lucchese troops
Southward--
_Lur._ Toward Florence? Have out instantly ...
Ah, old use clings! Puccio must care henceforth.
In--quick--'tis nearly midnight! Bid him come!
(_Enter_ TIBURZIO, BRACCIO, _and_ PUCCIO.)
_Lur._ Tiburzio?--not at Pisa?
_Tib._ I return
From Florence: I serve Pisa, and must think
By such procedure I have served her best.
A people is but the attempt of many
To rise to the completer life of one;
And those who live as models for the mass
Are singly of more value than they all.
Such man are you, and such a time is this,
That your sole fate concerns a nation more
Than much apparent welfare: that to prove
Your rectitude, and duly crown the same,
Imports us far beyond to-day's event,
A battle's loss or gain: man's mass remains,--
Keep but God's model safe, new men will rise
To take its mould, and other days to prove
How great a good was Luria's glory. True--
I might go try my fortune as you urged,
And, joining Lucca, helped by your disgrace,
Repair our harm--so were to-day's work done;
But where leave Luria for our sons to see?
No, I look farther. I have testified
(Declaring my submission to your arms)
Her full success to Florence, making clear
Your probity, as none else could: I spoke,
And out it shone!
_Lur._ Ah--until Braccio spoke!
_Brac._ Till Braccio told in just a word the whole--
His lapse to error, his return to knowledge:
Which told ... Nay, Luria, I should droop the head,
I whom shame rests with! Yet I dare look up,
Sure of your pardon how I sue for it,
Knowing you wholly. Let the midnight end!
'Tis morn approaches! Still you answer not?
Sunshine succeeds the shadow passed away;
Our faces, which phantasmal grew and false,
Are all that felt it: they change round you, turn
Truly themselves now in its vanishing.
Speak, Luria! Here begins your true career:
Look up, advance! All now is possible,
Fact's grandeur, no false dreaming! Dare and do!
And every prophecy shall be fulfilled
Save one--(nay, now your word must come at last)
--That you would punish Florence!
_Hus._ [_Pointing to_ LURIA'S _dead body_.] That is done.
CHRISTMAS-EVE AND EASTER-DAY
FLORENCE, 1850
CHRISTMAS-EVE
I
Out of the little chapel I burst
Into the fresh night-air again.
Five minutes full, I waited first
In the doorway, to escape the rain
That drove in gusts down the common's centre
At the edge of which the chapel stands,
Before I plucked up heart to enter.
Heaven knows how many sorts of hands
Reached past me, groping for the latch
Of the inner door that hung on catch
More obstinate the more they fumbled,
Till, giving way at last with a scold
Of the crazy hinge, in squeezed or tumbled
One sheep more to the rest in fold,
And left me irresolute, standing sentry
In the sheepfold's lath-and-plaster entry,
Six feet long by three feet wide,
Partitioned off from the vast inside--
I blocked up half of it at least.
No remedy; the rain kept driving.
They eyed me much as some wild beast,
That congregation, still arriving,
Some of them by the main road, white
A long way past me into the night.
Skirting the common, then diverging;
Not a few suddenly emerging
From the common's self through the paling-gaps,
--They house in the gravel-pits perhaps,
Where the road stops short with its safeguard border
Of lamps, as tired of such disorder;--
But the most turned in yet more abruptly
Prom a certain squalid knot of alleys,
Where the town's bad blood once slept corruptly,
Which now the little chapel rallies
And leads into day again,--its priestliness
Lending itself to hide their beastliness
So cleverly (thanks in part to the mason),
And putting so cheery a whitewashed face on
Those neophytes too much in lack of it,
That, where you cross the common as I did,
And meet the party thus presided,
"Mount Zion" with Love-lane at the back of it,
They front you as little disconcerted
As, bound for the hills, her fate averted,
And her wicked people made to mind him,
Lot might have marched with Gomorrah behind him.
II
Well, from the road, the lanes or the common,
In came the flock: the fat weary woman,
Panting and bewildered, down-clapping
Her umbrella with a mighty report,
Grounded it by me, wry and flapping,
A wreck of whalebones; then, with a snort,
Like a startled horse, at the interloper
(Who humbly knew himself improper,
But could not shrink up small enough)
--Round to the door, and in,--the gruff
Hinge's invariable scold
Making my very blood run cold.
Prompt in the wake of her, up-pattered
On broken clogs, the many-tattered
Little old-faced peaking sister-turned-mother
Of the sickly babe she tried to smother
Somehow up, with its spotted face,
From the cold, on her breast, the one warm place;
She too must stop, wring the poor ends dry
Of a draggled shawl, and add thereby
Her tribute to the door-mat, sopping
Already from my own clothes' dropping,
Which yet she seemed to grudge I should stand on:
Then, stooping down to take off her pattens,
She bore them defiantly, in each hand one,
Planted together before her breast
And its babe, as good as a lance in rest.
Close on her heels, the dingy satins
Of a female something past me flitted,
With lips as much too white, as a streak
Lay far too red on each hollow cheek;
And it seemed the very door-hinge pitied
All that was left of a woman once,
Holding at least its tongue for the nonce.
Then a tall yellow man, like the Penitent Thief,
With his jaw bound up in a handkerchief,
And eyelids screwed together tight,
Led himself in by some inner light.
And, except from him, from each that entered,
I got the same interrogation--
"What, you the alien, you have ventured
To take with us, the elect, your station?
A carer for none of it, a Gallio!"--
Thus, plain as print, I read the glance
At a common prey, in each countenance
As of huntsman giving his hounds the tallyho.
And, when the door's cry drowned their wonder,
The draught, it always sent in shutting,
Made the flame of the single tallow candle
In the cracked square lantern I stood under,
Shoot its blue lip at me, rebutting
As it were, the luckless cause of scandal:
I verily fancied the zealous light
(In the chapel's secret, too!) for spite
Would shudder itself clean off the wick,
With the airs of a Saint John's Candlestick.
There was no standing it much longer.
"Good folks," thought I, as resolve grew stronger,
"This way you perform the Grand-Inquisitor
When the weather sends you a chance visitor?
You are the men, and wisdom shall die with you,
And none of the old Seven Churches vie with you!
But still, despite the pretty perfection
To which you carry your trick of exclusiveness,
And, taking God's word under wise protection,
Correct its tendency to diffusiveness,
And bid one reach it over hot ploughshares,--
Still, as I say, though you've found salvation,
If I should choose to cry, as now, 'Shares!'--
See if the best of you bars me my ration!
I prefer, if you please, for my expounder
Of the laws of the feast, the feast's own Founder;
Mine's the same right with your poorest and sickliest,
Supposing I don the marriage vestiment:
So, shut your mouth and open your Testament,
And carve me my portion at your quickliest!"
Accordingly, as a shoemaker's lad
With wizened face in want of soap,
And wet apron wound round his waist like a rope,
(After stopping outside, for his cough was bad,
To get the fit over, poor gentle creature,
And so avoid disturbing the preacher)
--Passed in, I sent my elbow spikewise,
At the shutting door, and entered likewise,
Received the hinge's accustomed greeting,
And crossed the threshold's magic pentacle,
And found myself in full conventicle,
--To wit, in Zion Chapel Meeting,
On the Christmas-Eve of 'Forty-nine,
Which, calling its flock to their special clover,
Found all assembled and one sheep over,
Whose lot, as the weather pleased, was mine.