scarcely a relation in the world except an aunt who had gone to the
cloister, and an uncle who had crossed the sea, and a rich cousin who
had betaken himself St. Jerome knew whither; but Alonzo, who had a much
nearer concern in the matter, seemed to know little enough about it.
They had travelled much, and Leonora was mistress apparently of the
literature of all Europe; yet they went rarely into company, for they
doted upon one another with a love so perfect and so engrossing, that
you might have fancied them, as they fancied themselves, alone in the
world, with no toil and no pleasure, but solitary walks, and songs of
tenderness, and gazings upon one another’s eyes. If ever perfection
existed in woman, it existed here. I do not know why I did not fall in
love with Leonora; but to be sure I was in love with five or six at a
time.
A few months flew delightfully away. Leonora taught me Spanish, and
Alonzo taught me to swim. Every morning was occupied with romantic
excursions by water or by land, and every evening was beguiled with
literary conversation or music from the loveliest voice and the most
eloquent strings that ever I had the fortune to listen to. And when we
parted, we parted with warm hearts, and pleasant anticipations, and
affectionate tears. In two brief years those hearts were separated, and
those anticipations were blighted for ever, and those tears were
exchanged for tears of bitterness and of mourning.
The troubles of Spain commenced; and my poor Alonzo joined the Patriots,
and fell in his first campaign. Leonora had been--not a heroine, for I
hate heroines--but a noble woman. She herself had decorated the young
victim whom she sacrificed to her country’s good; she had embroidered
the lace on his uniform with her own hand; she had given him the scarf
which was found turned round his arm on the field; and she had smiled
mournfully as she bade him wear it till some one more beautiful or more
beloved had chosen him for her knight. And when he had girded on his
father’s sword, and lingered with his hand upon his courser’s mane, she
had said “farewell” in a firm voice, and wept while she said it.
It was on a journey to Scotland that I passed through the small village
in which the Spanish lady had shrouded her fading beauty and her
breaking heart. I sent up my name to her, and was admitted into her
little drawing-room immediately. Oh! how altered she seemed that day.
All the colour had disappeared from her cheek, and all the freshness
from her lip; she had still the white hand and arm, which I had seen
running so lightly over the strings of her theorbo, but they were wasted
terribly away; and though her long dark locks were braided as carefully
as they had been in happier days, they did not communicate the idea of
brightness and brilliancy which they had been wont to scatter over her
countenance. She endeavoured to rise from the sofa as I entered; but the
effort was too great for her, and she sat down without speaking. She was
evidently dying; and the contrast between the parting and the meeting,
and the vague vision of the past and the melancholy reality of the
present, struck me so forcibly and so sadly, that I stayed with my hand
on the door and burst into tears.
“We are not to weep thus,” she said; “he fell like a true Spaniard, and
I only regret that I was not born a man, that I might have put my rifle
to my shoulder and died with my hand in his. Pray sit down; it is a long
time since I have seen any friend who can talk to me of the old days.”
I suggested that she ought to endeavour to think less of the losses she
had endured, and to dwell more cheerfully on the tranquillity which
might yet be in store for her. “I should despise you now,” she
answered, “if I could think this advice came from your heart. What! you
would have me forget him, whose life was my dearest pleasure, and whose
death is my greatest pride. Look at this ring,” and she took off a small
gold one, and made me remark its motto--_fiel a la muerte_; “he would
not have bade me wear this in remembrance of him, if he had not known
that he was doomed to perish, if he had not known too that I should be
happy afterwards in thinking and dreaming of him.” Then she began to
recall minutely every scene and circumstance of our intimacy; inquiring
about every study or amusement we had meditated or enjoyed together,
whether I had bettered my flute-playing, whether I had studied
landscape, whether I had finished Calderon. She wearied herself with
talking; and then, leaning her head on the cushions, desired me to take
up a book from the table and read to her, that she might hear whether my
pronunciation was improved.
I took up the first that presented itself; it was only a manuscript
book, containing many scraps and fragments from different authors in her
brother’s writing. I laid it down again, and took up the next: it was a
Dante which I had given her: I opened it at random and began to read the
story of Francesca. When I came to the celebrated lines--
Nessun maggior dolore
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria----
“I do not believe a word of it” she said. “I would not lose my
recollection for all Mexico.”
I took leave of her soon: for I saw that my presence agitated and
wearied her. When I had parted from her before, she had given me a
miniature of herself, which she had painted in all the glow of health
and spirits, and ardent affections, which then so well became her. Now
she gave me another which had been her task or pleasure in sickness and
solitude. I do not know why I turn from the first with its fine hues and
sparkling lustre, to gaze upon the paleness and languor of the other,
with a deeper feeling of melancholy delight.
When I returned from Scotland after the lapse of two months, Leonora was
dead. I found the sexton of the village, and desired him to point out to
me the spot where she rested. There was a small marble slab over her
remains, with the brief inscription, “Leonora.--Addio!” I stood for a
few minutes there, and began to moralize and murmur. “It seems only
yesterday,” I said, “that she was moving and breathing before me, with
all the buoyancy and beauty of her blameless form and her stainless
spirit; and now she lies in her purity and her loveliness.”
“She lies in a pretty grave,” said the old sexton, looking with apparent
satisfaction on his handiwork.
“She does, indeed, good Nicholas; and her loveliness is but little to
the purpose!”
DAMASIPPUS.
DAMASIPPUS.
SYRINX.
CYANE.
GETA.
MARSYAS.
A MESSENGER.
_Scene_--ROME. _A Cook’s Shop._ _Time_--NIGHT.
DAM. [_entering._] Hilloa! black dweller in darkness! Hilloa! monarch of
perfumes and placentæ! How long am I to kick my royal feet before thy
damnable dwelling-place, like a half-buried ghost before Charon, or a
half-witted Grecian before Troy? Shrivelled imp of Hades, answer me! Was
it for me--for me, reptile, the lord of all misrule, the bosom friend of
every felon and flagon in Rome, the deepest drinker that ever kissed
Chian--saving always the Emperor, whom the Fates and the Furies
preserve!--was it for me to stand for an hour, roaring “Syrinx, Syrinx,”
louder than ever poet cried Evoe! over his sour verses and sour vinegar,
with not a hand of those who live by me to take the bolt from the door
and the seal from the bottle? Now, by Pollux----
SYR. Prince of patrons----
DAM. I tell thee, foul fiend, all Rome has been at my heels, hooting and
hallooing, sweating and swearing, making a very chaos of greasy caps and
grievous imprecations, red flambeaux and faces almost as red, cooks and
cobblers, slaves and centurions, money borrowers and money lenders. By
Pollux, again I say, Themison is not more weary when he has prescribed
for his twentieth patient, nor Palemon, when the last disputant of his
hundred has murthered grammar and great Julius together.
SYR. Merciful lord----
DAM. Hecate! We are come to a pretty pass, when a man of my blood may
not walk in the dark, and swear in a mask, and kiss a girl in the
Capitol, and cudgel a usurer in the Suburra--but fathers, and brothers,
and cousins--ay, by the gods of the hearthstone! and mothers and aunts
to boot--must start up, like the Argonaut’s harvest, scouring and
screaming in all the streets of Rome and all the dialects of its
provinces. Marry, hang them! Is there no respect or reverence for my
this year’s chariot, or my last year’s fasces? Nay, then, honour may
hide in a cloaca, and fashion walk a-foot; patricians shall patronize
the tunic, and consulships be sold for an as.
SYR. Most munificent of revellers----
DAM. And for thee, scum of Ethiopia, for thee to keep thy supporter and
thy sovereign lingering thus long before thy threshold, and listening to
the cries, and the curses, and the distant murmurs of a mob. May I never
fling Venus again, may I never lip Mela’s Falernian, may the black
plague poison my pickles, may the green jacket fail in the circus, if
ever I danced the client so long--no, not before the Emperor’s gate--no,
not under Triphenion’s window, though she be witty, and wicked, and gay,
and golden-haired, the fairest and the fondest of the daughters of
Corinth! Epona! belike thou hast forgotten me; there is nothing to be
remembered in my forehead and my features! Look at me, villain,
slave--who am I?
SYR. My most admirable and excellent master, I lick thy foot. Thou art
the supreme of sin and song, the chief choice of charioteers, the love
of all thy slaves, the envy of all the Senate, priest of pledgings and
king of cups, the Mars of midnight, the Cupid of costume, the Jupiter of
all joviality!
DAM. Excellent well! I had not deemed thy recollection so good; marry,
thou mayest perhaps recollect the far-back landing, and the lorn look,
and the chalked sole, and the bored ear; and thou mayest perhaps have
some slight vision of thrushes fried to dust, and boars burned to
powder, and the inflicted scourge, and the threatened crucifixion. I
thought that withered skin of thine had undergone metempsychosis, or
that thou hadst found the two springs of Lethe in Vindicta and Vertigo.
SYR. Prince of men, it is not so lightly that I forget my native dust,
or the hand that raised me from it. All I have is thine own; take of it
to eat or to drink, or to wear or to waste; set thy slipper on my head,
and crush my brains beneath thee; give me thy dagger, and let me pledge
a health to thee in my best heart’s blood.
DAM. Honest Syrinx, I forgive thee! let there be new peace and old wine
between us. Ha! little Cyane, where hast thou hidden thy mirth and
mitra? Come hither, little Cyane! What! I warrant me thou wert afraid of
me, because my frown was somewhat grim, and my posture somewhat
gladiatorial. But mine anger is vanished; I am as cold as the snows of
Hæmus, or the pleadings of Pedo. Sit by me, Cyane; we will have music
anon.
CYA. Now, by Venus, I had not dreamed we should see you again,
Damasippus! Have you been grieving with the jaundice or grappling with
the Gauls? Have you hunted Parnassus and the columns, or cultivated
philosophy and a beard? Ah! now I bethink me; there were two tormentors
who kept your sweet looks from us; soldier and sophist they were, uncle
and father. Tisiphone whip them for it! And what hast thou done with
them, dear Damasippus: him of the civic crown, with his sword and
buckler, his sour look and sagum; who prated to you of cohorts and
conquests, warfare and wounds, Syria and Armenia, Ister and Rhine? and
him of the Stoic school, with his good morals and grave face, his short
breath and long speeches, who only lived for profitless dispute, and
endless enthymeme, and meaningless maxim, and senseless syllogism.
Mercury! but they were a valuable pair to all the lovers of laughter.
DAM. They were, Cyane, they were; but they were loathsome poisoners of
enjoyment, and detestable marrers of mettle. Here is to the quiet of
their encampment. Mine uncle--the gods be thanked for that--is with the
Prætor in Spain; and my father--the gods be thanked for that too--is
with his ancestors in the Flaminian; and I am here, sweet Cyane--the
gods be thanked for that, above all--sufficiently merry and reasonably
drunk. I thought I should have died before supper. A hundred plagues
have haunted me since daybreak. My head was out of order, and my
physician out of town; and my mistress broke an appointment, and my
curricle broke down; and the theatres were empty, and the courts were
full; and merry Marcus was swearing in the sullens, and solemn Saleius
was reciting in the baths. Phœbus blight him for it! Λ decree of the
Senate would never stop that eternal babbler; it would be easier to
silence the Danube. Does he think that man, whose life is fourscore
years, has nothing to study and care for here but warrior and amazon,
epic and ode, maidens shrieking in sapphics and heroes howling in
hexameters?
CYA. Nay now, sweetest soul of mine, you are very rude to the poets. May
I never see a solidus again, if I do not love a poet as I love my own
soul! They are all so humble, and so obedient, and so starving. Poor
Saleius never fingers a denarius, but it comes straight to us at the
Jews’ gate. And then he is so happy and so agreeable, and so fond of his
liquor and his laurels; and after his second cup, “Cyane,” says he, “did
you never hear my Orestes? Never, I’ll be sworn! Woe for thy education,
Cyane; thou wert born among savage barbarians, and suckled by tigresses,
and cradled in rocks and stones. But it shall be amended. ‘Learning,’ as
Ovid sung before me,
“‘Learning and love are good lustrations,
And purify all rude sensations,’”
And then he throws himself into an attitude thus, takes off his cup with
a tragic smack of the lips, and “Cyane,” quoth he, “thou shalt hear
sounds which Hercules might have earned by the repetition of his old
labours, which Cleopatra might have bought with the brightest jewel in
her crown. Their melody might make a client pause when he throws his
first glance on the sportula, or a lawyer when the last drop of his
clepsydra is putting him into a passion and a gallop. They might wake a
Stoic from his mutterings, or a spendthrift from his debauch, or a lover
from his dream, or a Christian from his cloud-worship. Listen; I am to
recite them at Carus’s to-morrow, and would fain have thy judgment,
Cyane, on my voice and manner. By Phœbus, there is some fascination in
both, and I could tell thee of some bright-haired ladies who have
thought so. Ha!” Upon which I compose my features into a greedy gaze of
admiration, and bid Syrinx hold the bottle, and Marsyas hold his tongue;
and so my man of loud verses and cheap drink prologuises.
DAM. Let me bathe my lips in the Chian but once more, and so begin,
Cyane: thou art an incomparable mimic; Bathyllus is but dirt by thy
side.
CYA. What will you have then, sweet Damasippus? Œdipus, the expounder of
riddles, or Ajax, the slaughterer of sheep? Medea, with her brats and
dragons, or Orestes, with his rags and snakes? for he has stored me with
specimens of all.
DAM. The last, I pray thee, the last; let me hear what Orestes says to
his tormentors, that I may know how to answer mine. Marry, the fiends in
the fish market are becoming so tumultuous now, that a nobleman knows
not wherewithal to reply, unless he ransacks the poets for complimentary
language.
CYA. Thus then: “It is necessary that thou shouldst understand, Cyane,
how that Orestes is the murderer of his mother--a wicked thing, by
Themis, a wicked thing; but justifiable in particular cases. Æmilius
argued it so the other day, and saved his client--Publius it was, who
had succeeded somewhat too suddenly to an inheritance. Alas, avarice
never walks abroad, but she carries aconite fastened to her girdle. But
as I said, Orestes has murdered his mother, and he rushes upon the stage
with long hair, and short breath, and torn garments, and wandering eyes;
and fifty furies are in readiness without, with snaky ringlets and
blazing torches, which thou knowest, little Cyane, are the adornments
which the furies most conceit. When Serranus played his Megæra, the
torches went out; but those things shall be better cared for when I----but
I lose time; listen! Orestes begins thus, faltering a little from
fear, as is natural:
“‘Dark goddesses, swift-footed, serpent-haired,
Red-eyed, black-lipped, hell’s offspring, earth’s annoy,
Avaunt, I spit upon ye! King Apollo,
Lord of the beaming bow and echoing string,
Fair-browed, far-darting, Prince of Poetry,
Art thou a juggler? are thine oracles
Mere webs for witching flies? Behold! they come!
Railing and roasting, scampering and scaring,
All hot from hissing Tartarus! Ο God,
Pæan, Lycean,
God of music, god of day,
Delian, Patarean,
Help, help! and let me see an
End of these calamities as soon as I may.’”
DAM. Ha! ha! May Æsculapius put life into my father’s ashes, if I do not
love thee entirely. The poet is under infinite obligations to thee; if
thou wouldst only study this trade, the dirty Quirites would run from
their bread--by Pollux! I think they would run from their games, to hear
thee. And now the answer, pretty Saleius, the response of the Avengers!
CYA. Let me unfasten my mitra, and perform it in costume. There! “Now,
Cyane,” he says, “thou must suppose, what doubtless thou hast already
suspected, that the goddesses rush in with their shrivelled arms and
terrible eyebrows, dancing, in groups of three or four, a dance dreadful
to look upon, such a dance as Pomponia’s slave performs when he is
whipped, or Paulus’s mistress when she is intoxicated; thus, Cyane, a
rapid agitation of the right foot, then a corresponding movement of the
left, with vibrations of the arms and contortions of the neck in
unison. Presently the chief of them chants these terrible verses in a
low and dismal scream:
“‘Ye raven-headed goddesses,
Who, in your cloudy bodices,
Hover with me around this ball of earth,
And ever love to mix
Dark drops from your own Styx
With every rivulet of living mirth,
Fit followers of mortality,
Fine teachers of morality,
Eternal servants of the Olympian thunder,--
Dwellers in mirky mists,
By whose unyielding wrists
Strong frames are racked, fine heart-strings rent asunder,--
Come hither, solemn sisters,
Rain, rain your boils and blisters,
Heart-thrilling ache, swift stripe, and searing cinder,
Come hither, oh! come hither,
And let him waste and wither,
Roaring like twenty bulls, and rotting into tinder!’”
DAM. Ho! ho! ho! Stop, dear girl, or thou wilt murder me indeed; thou
art very Saleius from head to foot. Investigate the flagon and proceed:
I would bring thee to the Emperor’s hearing, Cyane, had I not some
scruples of jealousy in my composition. But thou must be chary of thy
parlous wit, for those singing birds are marvellously inflammable; I
have known them in their wrath more rude than a Briton and more robust
than a rhinoceros. Codrus broke my skull in the first week of my
consulship, because I asked him how often he had dined upon his Theseid;
and Serranus has written five-and-twenty lampoons upon me, because I
told him that Podalirius recommends cold water for a December cup. And I
need not tell thee that these male sempstresses of absurdities have at
their beck and bidding sword and dagger, plague and pestilence, balista
and bowl--ay, by my head, and lightning-flash and thunder-bolt to boot,
and the whole armoury of the skies. But go on, sweetest of all the
Furies; maledictions from such lips as thine are worth blessings from
any others.
CYA. I have done! Never was Sibyl more weary after an hour’s raving.
But Damasippus hath noticed none other of his friends. Geta is here, and
Parmeno, and little Amphitryon, and tall Antigonus. Come, do throw away
a word upon them; it is long since they have looked upon their master.
DAM. Geta, worthy Geta, sovereign reducer of ringlets and princely mower
of beards, how fares the world with thee! Well, as I can divine by thy
red nose and round external. What! do the gallants still linger to
babble truth and falsehood in the shade of thy dominion? Come, let us
know what scandal is toward.
GET. I prate scandal! Now Mercury forbid! It is true that idle persons
do consort to me often; and as my worshipful master knows, much talk
will arise of princes and patricians, and matters with which the like of
Geta are little concerned. But do I ever report a syllable? Now Mercury
forbid! ’Twas but yesterday that young Nasica was telling of the quarrel
between Aurelius and his wife; did you hear? She must go on the arena
forsooth; nothing would serve her but helm and sword, glory and fencing.
“Why not,” quoth the lady; “was not Julia in training with Capella, and
had not Lucia foiled her master after three week’s learning?” Marry,
Aurelius was but little moved by authority or precept. He stilled her
arguments by oaths, and sold her paraphernalia by auction; carried her
into the country on a lean mule, and confined her in what he calls his
Tusculan, where he collects together gems he cannot name, and books he
cannot read, busts with broken noses and bailiffs who talk philosophy.
DAM. Bravo! and has the lady laid her propensities on the shelf?
GET. No; she has put her baggage on board; she has gone off to sea with
that long armed destroyer of tigers, Cleobulus. The amphitheatre never
saw a firmer hand or a quicker eye. But do I ever mention the story? Now
Mercury forbid! Then there was merry Tiberius--ha, ha! a clever young
fellow, and one who stands well with the court; and he was telling how
Sulpicia tore the old Prætor’s hair to shreds, because he had never read
Homer, and whipped a slave to death because he brought her some
perfumes wrapt up in a page of old Horace. A strong woman, and terrible
when moved! But do I circulate these tales? Now Mercury forbid!
DAM. Thou art the most silent of babblers, the most veracious of liars,
the most honest of knaves! I would trust in thy keeping, dear Geta, all
secrets that men strive most to conceal; I would breathe in thine ear my
successful amours and my anonymous writings, my own merits and the
failings of my friends.
GET. Ah! Damasippus was always witty with his slaves. But I suppose you
have not heard of the tumult at Glycerion’s last night. I have heard
mention of nought else to-day. Valla has said nothing of the Gauls, and
Varus has been silent upon his lawsuit.
DAM. Prithee, now what was the manner of it?
GET. You know Glycerion--the little light-eyed Lesbian. And you know
Titus too; and you used to cling as constantly to his side as the
lictors to the consul or the duns to Flaminius. Well; he was shivering
before her door last night in a thin cloak and sullen mood, with a lute
in his hand, and a garland on his head, and perfumes enough on his
apparel to convert Tartarus into Ida, and make Atinia herself endurable.
A rival comes up; a young fellow in a long robe, masqued, and walking on
tiptoes. Swords are drawn--crossed--thrusts given and returned; and
Titus discovers that the sober votary of pleasure, the quiet Clodius,
the dissipated Hippolytus, is no other than---- Guess now! You may study
until a second Virgil rises, until the sun sets at daybreak, until I
talk Greek, until my wife talks reason, and you shall never come near
the mark. No other, by Jupiter and his transformations, than his
studious and stern brother Caius.
DAM. Now, by Pollux, I am glad of it! Caius is a handsome young fellow,
and deserves not spoiling by learning, and sobriety.
GET. But the beauty of the jest remains behind. They
explain--coalesce--beat the door from its hinges, and find in the
citadel Caius’s long-winded and long-bearded tutor, wrinkled Terentius,
solacing his tired brain with stewed vegetables, golden smiles, and a
goblet of damaged Falernian.
DAM. I will sacrifice a hecatomb. Thus it should ever be.
GET. But do I tell these stories? Do I repeat what may hurt
reputation?--Now Mercury forbid! They told me, and it is indeed true,
but do I repeat it?--now Mercury forbid!--that Aurunculeia was seen in
the Suburra three nights ago in a mantle and hood, hastening to meet
Lentulus, the----
DAM. Aurunculeia! Now, by Olympus and all its sojourners, I will drive
the foul falsehood down thy black and calumnious throat. Withered imp of
iniquity, cunning scatterer of poison, lie there; I put my sword’s point
to thy throat, and recommend to thee silence and thy last testament.
SYR. Noble Damasippus!
MARS. Sweet prince, have mercy!
DAM. Mercy is not for him! He shall never smooth a chin or fabricate a
lie again. Come hither, Cyane: take off thy scarlet slipper, girl, and
beat him till he confesses.