ACT I.--SCENE I._The daughter of Jorio

[Illustration: Cover art]

[Frontispiece: Gabriele d'Annunzio]

THE

DAUGHTER OF JORIO

A PASTORAL TRAGEDY

GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO

TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIAN

CHARLOTTE PORTER, PIETRO ISOLA

AND ALICE HENRY

WITH A PORTRAIT AND PICTURES FROM THE

ITALIAN PRODUCTION

BOSTON

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY

1907

BY GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO.

BY DIRCÉ ST. CYR.

Stage rights reserved

BY THE POET LORE COMPANY.

BY LITTLE, BROWN, & COMPANY.

Published November, 1907

THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.

THE LAND OF THE ABRUZZI, TO MY MOTHER

TO MY SISTERS, TO MY BROTHERS

ALSO

TO MY FATHER, ENTOMBED, TO ALL MY DEAD

AND TO ALL MY RACE BETWEEN THE

MOUNTAIN AND THE SEA

THIS SONG OF THE ANTIQUE BLOOD

I CONSECRATE

INTRODUCTION

An elemental savor of the savage blood of the ancient race clings to

the country of the Abruzzi. This elemental quality, intensely

impressional and tragic, underlies the light sensitive beauty and

bright artistic grace characteristic of Italy in general.

The lore and customs of the native folk, growing the vine and olive

in the sunny slopes running seaward to the southern Adriatic, have

been shut away from the easy touch of western Europe by the towering

ridge of the Apennines, on whose rugged slopes the sheep are

pastured. It is still the most archaic, the most stubbornly

unmetropolitan corner of Italy. Here, even more than elsewhere in

the country beloved of all other younger countries, the mediæval and

the Pagan worlds linger intimately together, blending faiths and

customs. It is a good soil and a fertile for growing an enduring

masterpiece that shall gather Italy up into its being, and taste of

the profound, immortal heart of the land.

In this land of the Abruzzi, and in the dim enchanted epoch of "once

upon a time," "The Daughter of Jorio" is set. As the drama unfolds

it carries with it this charmed atmosphere. Who reads or hears this

"song of the antique blood" is suddenly at home, too, in the Abruzzi,

and catches the life along with the music of many years ago.

As descendants from the Abruzzi stock, two friends--D'Annunzio, the

poet, and Michetti, the painter, travelled throughout their

fatherland together, faring up the majestic snow-cloaked Maella and

the precipitous Gran Sasso, to and fro among the rocky sheepsteads

and caverns of the mountains, and along the bordering stretches of

sea-shore.

They heard, then, a name, spoken in a way belonging to common custom

there. Grown persons in this pastoral region are still known in

patriarchal manner, not by their own names but merely as son or

daughter of their father. The melody of the name thus heard haunted

the memories of the artist-travellers. As the gipsy refrain Browning

heard while a boy thrilled his blood like a call from the

Wild--"Following the Queen of the Gipsies, O!" and bore poetic fruit

long afterward in "The Flight of the Duchess," so, likewise, this

sonorous name stirred the secret chords of artistic response in the

imagination of these two friends and bore subconscious fruit in them.

The fruit is different enough, yet of a kindred germ and flavor.

Each has rendered it as a tribute to the mother-country in whose

traditions he was cradled.

The name they heard--"La figlia di Jorio," meaning much to them,

little to another,--may now be understood to be in itself eloquent of

the old tribal feeling. This feeling, sinking the son in the father,

places him apart from any other rule or influence than that of his

own kith and kin. It admits no honorable union with one outside the

clan without pang and social upheaval.

The mere name thus held within it, for the imaginative conception of

genius, the seed of tragic social clash between alien castes or

warring rival families. Such clash between warring Italian families

Shakespeare showed in the love of a Capulet and a Montague. The

imperative elemental drawing together of Juliet and her Romeo ran

counter to long-established grooves of social cleavage. It was a

cleavage not to be welded except through the woe and spiritual

triumph of love. Such clash between the established pastoral clan

and the outcast is the theme which slumbered in this name for both

D'Annunzio and Michetti. D'Annunzio's development of it leads by a

different path to a triumph of love as spiritually exalting and as

socially significant as Shakespeare's.

For Michetti, the haunting name resulted, shortly after their

journey, in some wonderful pictures,--sketches in water-color for a

great painting in oil, now owned in Berlin, where it gives lustre to

the Geeger collection,--later a large pastel exhibited in 1895, in

the International Exposition of the Fine Arts at Venice.

Michetti's imagination presented the daughter of Jorio as a wanderer,

with a cloak covering her head and held shieldingly over the breast

by the right hand, while she passes a group of staring rustics. Her

long rushing strides, as of one who "knows well the pathways," have a

strangely alluring motion, like that of a majestic hunted fugitive.

One of the five men whose gaze she attracts is riveted by her look.

To the others she means less than nothing. She is an outcast or a

laughing-stock. To this one she means a mystic appeal thrown into

his life to stamp it forever.

Not until many years after the journey through the Abruzzi, in 1903,

at Mettuno, the haunting name, fused with some germinal impression

flowing from Michetti's pictures, resulted for D'Annunzio in his "La

Figlia di Jorio." The plot is of his own pure imagination all

compact. It rests upon no legend, he says. The creative idea came

in a compelling influence that gripped him while busied in other

absorbing poetic work belonging to a series he has had in mind, and

involving historic research in the past of Italy. These annals of

the Malatesta this sudden influence bade him put aside. It called

him, instead, to pour himself out, with an ardor imperious and

self-assured, in a glowing flood of strongly-stressed rhythmic

poetry. The flood of fire took molten shape in this tragedy. It

embodied not the historic life of warring nobles, but the obscure,

toiling, pastoral life of antique Italy.

The result is a tragedy vividly spectacular, dramatically strong and

simple. The picturesque loveliness belonging to the opening of each

act is cut sharply across with the ruthless inrush of direct vital

action. Into the graceful beauty of the lyrical espousal scene of

the first Act is thrust the pitiless hunting down of Mila, the

daughter of Jorio, by the brutal barking band of reapers. In the

midst of the serene idealism of the uplifted group in Aligi's meagre

mountain cave, where, in the second Act, love and art and insight

reinforce and befriend each other, close, even, upon the sanctity of

the kiss of the kneeling lovers, is thrust the crass bestial

domination of the lusty Lazaro, equipped and privileged to do his

evil will. This, perforce, leads to the lightning stroke of the

murder. Finally, in the third Act, the poetic veil of meandering

lament and tender commiseration of the kindred for the stricken

family is rent away by the brusque entrance, the swift direct speech,

and decisive help of the daughter of Jorio. The self-sacrifice of

her ripened transcendent love is then the opportunity for

concentrating against her the blind clamor of their crude social

justice. The final climax of contrasts is attained by these

tumultuous voices of the surging mob on the one side crying, "To the

fire, to the flames with the daughter of Jorio!" and, on the other

side, by the voice of the clear-sighted Ornella calling in majesty,

"Mila, Mila! My sister in Jesus, I kiss your two feet that bear you

away! Heaven is for thee!" and the soaring, rapturous voice of Mila,

the outcast, who has taken all their sins upon herself, and who

cries, "The flame is beautiful! The flame is beautiful!"

These clear-cut contrasts are masterly for the stage either of the

theatre or the human breast. They strike to the quick of each

character, to the core of the meaning of every situation. Throwing

open each particular heart in its degree to comprehension, they

reveal it also to sympathy. At the same time they cast upon the

social sanction of the evil domination of Lazaro and upon the

separate woes of all those "who suffer and know not wherefore," the

larger light insensibly illumining the plot as a whole and disclosing

its typical relation to the plot of life in general. Thus, in the

emotionalized manner possible only to genius at mountain-peak

moments, the play illumines the perennial relations of a predestined

love to art and aspiration and of all three to social life, which

sacrifices all three when it wists not what it does.

The vivid picturesqueness of such scenes as those of the espousal

rites, in the first Act; the mourning of the kindred, and the

folk-judgment of the third Act; the interesting figures of Malde, the

treasure-seeker, the herb gatherer, and the wise old saint of the

mountain of the second Act; in fact, the homely episodes of pastoral

life throughout the drama rest upon traditional customs and rooted

beliefs of the Abruzzi.

At Pratola, Peligna, and other places in the Abruzzi the

mother-in-law receives her son's bride into her house with a nuptial

ritual full of poetic symbolism,--a ritual independent of that of the

Church. According to Antonio de Nino,--whose work on the "Habits and

Customs of the Abruzzi" scientifically verifies the folk-lore

D'Annunzio puts alive before us,--the mother breaks the bread, the

symbol of fertility, over the son and the daughter. And as she

touches the forehead, breast, and shoulders, she says: "May we live

together like Christians and not like cats and dogs." She initiates

her new daughter to her fireside by calling to her notice

home-objects to which special virtue was attributed: the

andiron-chain that could lull storms; the mortar that, if placed on

the window-sill, lured back the stray pigeon; the salt, which if hung

in a pouch around the baby's neck could keep it safe from the vampire.

The bride's kindred came to share in the ceremonial of espousal, as

in the play, first gathering at the house of the mother, whom they

always brought with them with honor at the close of their procession.

To the new home they advanced in single file, bearing on their heads

the _donora_, gifts of baskets of grain, with fluttering ribbons, and

on top a loaf and a flower. There was always some play of chaffering

at the door, barred, as in this drama, with a ribbon or scarf

stretched between a distaff and a bident, the implements emblematic

of woman and man. The exchange of a piece of money always closed the

bargain and gained them entrance. Then, every woman, passing on in

turn to the bridal pair, before lowering her basket, took from it a

handful of grain and scattered it over each head, saying: "This is

the bread God and our Lady send you. May you grow old together!"

The folk-ritual for burial and the improvisation of the laments by

the wailers were so elaborate that the ecclesiastical authorities

kept a jealous eye over their excesses. A decree of 1734 is

peculiarly interesting on account of the recognition it supplies that

these customs were bequests from a Pagan age. It declares that if

the women who indulge in the abuse of mourning at funerals "continue

to disturb the churchly office with lamentation and wailing and other

such practices of paganism," the clergy shall cease all ministration

and leave them with the body until they go home and "let the body

alone, so that the service can be followed according to the usage of

the Roman ritual."

Greater poetic interest belongs to the _laudi_ in the Abruzzi

dialect, examples of which are given in De Nino's fourth volume (_Usi

e costumi abbruzzesi par_ Antonio de Nino. 5 vols. Barbera,

Florence. 1879-1891). From the text of one of these, several verses

are employed by D'Annunzio in the third Act. He greatly enhances

their dramatic effect by putting them in the mouth of Candia, when

with wandering, benumbed wits she repeats bits of the dialogue

between the Sacred Mother and her suffering Son, half confusing her

own sorrows over her son Aligi with those of the Mater Dolorosa.

In all such instances heightened beauty and significance are given to

the Abruzzi usages with the surest and most delicate art. The throb

of life animates it. Yet the homely truth to reality behind the

adroit touches of art gifts the play with vigor and concreteness.

Even the passing reference of Splendore to the petticoat "of a dozen

breadths' fulness" is true, for example, to the dress of the women of

Scanno. The bridal raiment of green, also, "Of gold and silver the

yoke is fashioned But all the rest like the quiet verdure," is true

to the preference for green of the brides of Canzano.

Such games of rivalry for the straightest furrow, as that of which

Candia reminds her son, were held at Sora. In presence of the old

men the youths ran the plough from the crest of the hill to the foot

of the valley, when the prize, a hat or a scarf, was adjudged.

The "barking" of the reapers "like dogs at each passer" was an

ancient license of disorder at harvest time, called _fare

l'incanata_. So, the call for the wine-jug was a custom belonging to

the serenade of the bridal pair on the marriage night. The song

over, the singers expected wine, cheese, and a loaf to be handed them

outside the door.

As Aligi's cavern, the scene of the second Act, has its prototype in

an actual cavern on the mountain in Abruzzia, from which Michetti

made sketches for stage use in the Milan production, so also the

shepherd life, as it is presented especially in this Act, has its

model in reality. Their quiet existence, aloft among the peaks,

leaves the shepherds time to carve their sheep-hooks, as Aligi did,

and to achieve such other artistry in wood as Aligi masters. Their

neighbor, the sky, makes dreamers of them, too, like Aligi, and not

infrequently poets. The mountain affords them such comrades as Aligi

had in Malde, the treasure-diviner, the herb-woman, wise in

efficacious simples, and the lofty, serene-minded Cosmo. Perhaps

Cosmo is not meant to differ greatly in nature from the distinguished

saint of the Morrone mentioned by Aligi, Pietro Celestino, who was

made Pope Celestin V. in 1294, but who, only a few months afterwards,

abjured the stateliness of Rome for the hermit's retired life upon

the mountain-side. The habit of life, indicated by Aligi, is that of

the shepherds described by Finamore (_Il pastore e la pastorizia in

Abruzzo_ in _Archivo per lo studio della tradizioni popolari_, IV.

190). They select a sheepstead in the spring and collect their

flocks, living near them in caves or huts during the summer, but

going down to the village fortnightly for a three days' rest; and in

the autumn coming down with their flocks, and going on with them

either toward Rome or Puglia. Through the valleys and across the

mountains they hear the singing Pilgrims passing continually, as they

so effectively come and go in the stage directions of the second Act,

faring to and fro on the way to such shrines as Splendore mentions in

her reassuring words to Mila,--Santa Maria della Potenza, and the

Incoronata.

On the eve of the Celebration of St. John's Beheading (August 29) the

Plaia or the Virgine is climbed, according to custom, toward

midnight, so that the red disk of the August sun may be seen at dawn

from the hilltop. To the beholder of the apparition of the saint's

bleeding head in the disk it was accounted, as Aligi deemed it, a

miraculous sign of God's favor.

D'Annunzio himself maintains as to one of the superstitions he has

known how to weave predominatingly into the plot, namely, the

sanctity of the fireplace as a refuge from violence, that it is

Jewish rather than Italian. It may be so. In any case he has

exercised the right of a poet to use for his higher verities what he

needs and has the art to employ vitally and well. It may be, too,

that he has been peculiarly happy in grafting so distinctly Jewish a

belief on the rest of his more peculiarly Christian and Latin

beliefs, because there is an inner link of association between Mila's

fireside and such a sanctuary from their pursuers as the Adonijahs

and Joabs claimed when they "laid hold upon the horns of the altar."

Feasts were held and burnt offerings were devoted to Jehovah on such

altars. And similarly sacred to the gods of the hearthstone of the

ancient race--the Lares and Penates--was the fireside of the Romans.

The antique usage that marks the fireplace and sets it apart as the

altar or temple of the homestead is architecturally preserved in

ancient Italian buildings by the monumental setting of the

hearthstone above the level of the floor and the prominent hood to

the chimney. The utility of this arrangement, as usual with

folk-myths, has not hindered, but rather attracted, a religious

explanation.

Such a fireplace is an important trait of the stage directions in the

first Act for the scene-setting of the home of the Di Roio family.

It is in accord, like all the rest of the furnishings of the house,

with the record De Nino supplies of the typical Abruzzi homestead.

When the daughter of the alien, of the sorcerer Jorio, claims

sanctuary at the hearth, she claims it not alone because she is

Christian and therefore can justly make appeal to the God of this

hearth and this household. It is significant that she also makes her

appeal by virtue of the old laws of the hearthstone, to gods of the

Pagan race and the ancient kinsfolk. The sacredness of the fireplace

as the altar of each home is, in fact, not confined to any race. The

North American Indian, as well as the Roman, regards it religiously.

Such faiths grow from a human root.

In the play, the hearth, like the Jewish altar, becomes a mercy-seat,

to be held inviolate from violence and also from profanation. Mila

seeks it as a shrine and shield from violence. The kindred declare

that she profanes it.

The dependence of the second and third Acts upon the Roman law of the

absolute dominion of the father over the son, and the extreme penalty

for parricide of the sack and the mastiff and the deep sea is

justified by the ancient Latin code, as given in the digest of

Modestinus (xlviii, tit. 9, § 9). The persistence in the bucolic

mind of such grim ancestral morality causes such a code to outlive

its natural decay.

One of the allusions to the ancient credulities of the Abruzzi which

is most essential to the plot is Aligi's vision in the first Act of

Mila's guardian angel standing behind her weeping, and thus in

silence revealing the innocency of her wronged soul. The common

faith in the judgment of God upon the deeds of men being made clear

in a flash by the sudden sight of the angel in tears finds expression

in the proverbial sayings: "If you would measure the offence, look

behind the right shoulder of him whom you have offended." "If you

make your sister weep, you make the silent angel weep." "If you

forget to be just, the angel weeps."

Curious and interesting as all these veritable traces of folk-lore

may seem, they are but the dry bones to which the poet has given

flesh and breath. Not alone the rich deep soil of primitive custom

and religion in which he has rooted the play, but the spirit of

mystery primeval--older than Christianity or any one religious

influence--in which the play is wrapped, as in the atmosphere

necessary to its life, is indicated by D'Annunzio himself in his

"Triumph of Death":

"Rites of religions dead and forgotten survive there;

incomprehensible symbols of potencies long fallen into decay remain

intact there; habits of primitive peoples forever passed away persist

there, handed down without change from generation to generation; rich

customs, foreign and useless, retained there are the witnesses to the

nobility and beauty of an anterior life.... In all pomps and

ceremonies, work and play, in births and love, nuptials and,

funerals,--everywhere present and visible, there is a georgic

symbolism; everywhere the Titanic generating Mother Earth is

represented and reverenced as the bosom whence sprang the founts of

all good and all happiness."

When Mila is left in the cave, in the second Act, alone with the

ecstasy and anguish of her love for Aligi, and while she kneels

before the Christian symbol of motherhood, she turns also to this

hoary Earth, the mother of all motherhood, as the child in trouble to

the all-embracing mother-heart.

The love which she and Aligi feel within them is profoundly rooted in

that elemental mystery to which it has newly opened their

consciousness. It is more ancient far than any of the ties of habit

and family to which Aligi has been the embodiment of faithful

allegiance all his life before. Older than allegiance to the family

or the clan is the allegiance of lover and beloved, as the individual

man is prior to the tribal man.

As the play opens, the divine trouble of allegiance to this more

fundamental power has come upon Aligi dimly. Forebodings of the woe

of his attempted reconciliation of the two allegiances are sapping

his energy. In the depths of his soul is divined the fatal approach

of supreme love, the predestined child of this secret power of the

older time. The shadow of this approach girds him about in slumber

as in a shield by the side of the bride whose soul is no mate for his

soul. It holds him aloof until Mila comes. Then it plunges his old

allegiance, his most religiously dutiful subordination to the life of

kindred and family, into vital conflict with the inward sense of the

mystical power claiming a higher allegiance, a deeper, all-embracing

reverence.

The situation is a dramatic bodying forth of further words of

D'Annunzio upon the mystery brooding in the land of the antique blood:

"Mystery intervenes in all events, envelops and constrains every

existence; and supernatural life dominates, overwhelms, and absorbs

ordinary life."

Put into action, this is the clash of the ordinary fealty with a

fealty older, more personal, and through the art and the sacrifice

begotten of love, more rewarding to spiritual life. The hand of the

tribe has been ever against an overlordship of this spiritual kind,

knitting together the clansman and the alien, and substituting for

the child recruiting the solidarity of the clan, the Angel of Art

recruiting the very soul of the clan. To burn as an Apostate Angel

this Angel of Art along with the witch whose charm has awakened in

the lover's soul the capacity to show it forth--this is the usual

course of the clan. Only the Ornellas, the youngest and littlest of

its generation, are as prompt to see and to save as its privileged

heads, the Lazaros, are to desecrate and embrutalize.

Like Heinrich in Hauptmann's "Sunken Bell," Aligi is a dreamer. But

unlike Heinrich, he is no waverer. His dream is true. To the

divination it bestows he is true. As long as his soul and his senses

are intact to repel the benumbing influence of the potion he

disclaims Mila's sacrifice.

All larger meanings involved in the action are to be inferred as they

are in life. Each may behold for himself. Yet Ornella stands behind

the play, as the angel stood behind Mila. For any, if any there be,

who would question the bearing of its conclusion, Ornella is the

rectification of any possible doubt or misjudgment. Through the eyes

of her vision appears the transcendent loving of Mila.

No other works of D'Annunzio, not even the beautiful "Francesca,"

reach such heights. They have artistry, power, concrete truth to

life in common with "The Daughter of Jorio"; but they do not approach

it in that inner truth to life which unveils the purity and

aspiration of the power of supreme love in life and in art. That

inner life of the power of love hallows this tragedy. Hence the

poet's art gains an unerring potency of touch, and it makes the

loving of Mila worthy of a younger brother of the Dante of the "Vita

Nuova" and the "Paradiso."

Inseparable from the power of this tragedy to cause the deep things

within to be heard--"The deep things within that come from afar"--are

the incomparably beautiful rhythms in which they are chanted.

They are the rhythms belonging to the land of the Abruzzi and to

"many years ago." There, says the poet:

"Mystery and rhythm, these two essential elements of every cult, were

everywhere scattered. Men and women constantly expressed their souls

in song, accompanied by song all their labors under the roof or under

the sky, celebrated by song life and death. Over cradles and

winding-sheets undulated melodies slow and prolonged, very

ancient,--as ancient, perhaps, as the race whose profound sadness

they revealed.... Fixed in unalterable rhythm they seemed fragments

of hymns belonging to immemorial liturgies, surviving the destruction

of some great primordial mythus."

The poet seems to have loosed the pent-up sources of these immemorial

rhythms. He has dared in part to invent a free dramatico-lyric

verse, in part to recur to archaic forms of verse of like freedom.

In this way he has clothed every motion and gesture, every quiver of

the body of his drama, in a beauty begotten of "the antique blood."

Such music, sensitive to each catch of the living breath of emotion,

must seek a form more flexible than the iambic pentameters of English

usage or the hexameters or Alexandrines of French. The beauty

belonging to these in their perfection has yet led to a dull monotony

of always-anticipated stress in the perpetuity of their dramatic use

by modern dramatists. The artifice side of verse has been so

over-emphasized, by limitation to a form shut out from the thrill of

an unexpected cadence, that audiences instinctively flee the

infliction of sitting out a modern poetic drama, despite the general

superstition, because of its past glory, that it ought to be forever

and only liked.

Since the only alternative offered by conventional usage is bald

prose, even this has been gladly accepted in preference, and the

penalty paid of a totally commonplace effect, usually as bare of the

uplift and melody of art as a trolley car.

D'Annunzio has devised a better way. Heeding the secret of the

manifold effects,--now of the ancient _laudi dramatiche_ of his own

Abruzzi, now of the austerely simple plain-song of the mediæval hymn,

now of some strongly four-stressed Tuscan lyric of the twelfth

century, or even the two-stressed line of the rustic charm,--he has

varied his verse to suit every phase of emotion. He has used iambic

ascending rhythms, in hendecasyllabic lines, generally, for the

serener utterances, such as Candia's blessing in the espousal rites

of Act I; strongly marked trochaic rhythms, in octosyllabic lines,

for intense lyrical outpourings of spirit, such as Mila's song at the

opening of Act II, and swiftly descending dactyllic rhythms, giving

jets of voice to sharp seizures of feeling, such as the fierce outcry

of the Chorus of the Kindred in Act III--_Tempia e tempia, i denti le

sgrani_--"Temple to temple and shell out her teeth." Not only,

moreover, by the frequent employment of a strong initial syllable,

along with iambic or anapestic verse, and other such allowed

liberties, but also by the intercalation of extra syllables or the

omission of others within the normal foot, he has slowed or raced the

pace of the line, in obedience to some push of thought or beat of

purpose. So varied is the effect that the verse is as flexible as

prose speech. Yet the impression is never lawless, for the verse

never escapes the _ictus_ of a pervading inward shapeliness. The

artistic comeliness is felt along with the impetus each variation

pours into the sway of the line.

Internal rhyme, assonance, and thrice repeated double rhymes still

further prolong or break up the normal effects, so that to the

fluency of the wave of speech is added some momentary shimmering of

its surface, like the fleeting touches of the wind of the spirit

otherwise viewless.

Such internal rhymes, repetitions, and assonances, for example, occur

in the dialogue of Mila and Aligi in the second Act: _Pei monti

coglierai le genzianellè Eper le spiagge le stelle marine_.--"To cull

on the hilltop the blue gentian lonely, On the sea-shore only the

star-fish flower." _Si cammina cammina lungo il mare_.--"I border

the bordering stretches of sea-shore." Or such double rhymes appear

as in Femo di Nerfa's: _Prima che la mano gli tàglino, Prima che nel

sacco lo sèrrino, Col can mastino e lo gèttino, Al fiume in dove fa

gorgo_.--"Before his right hand they shall sever, Before in the

leathern sack they sew him With the savage mastiff and throw him

Where the deep restless waters o'erflow him."

The tendency of English verse during the Elizabethan renaissance was

toward a musical flexibility akin to D'Annunzio's. Shakespeare's

verse, especially in his ripest work, showed the same tendency before

it was regulated by Pope, who cut it into even lengths of ten

syllables, with every even one stressed, as nearly as he could, by

transposing, eliding, cutting off, or adding--a regulation still

masking as well as marring the native wood-notes wild in all our

modernized texts.

A similar flexibility belonged to Coleridge's "Christabel," wherein

he recurred to the elder fashion of marking the rhythm sufficiently

by stress to carry the voice as he willed it to go, instead of the

dominant fashion of meting it into uniformly even lengths of counted

syllables.

Each way should have its own uses for the modern poet according to

the impressional effect he desires. The elder fashion is no more

lawless than the one which has come to be so exclusively followed

through the dominance of French influences at the English Court, in

the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, influences suiting the

growing formalism of the English temperament. Indeed the elder

fashion requires a more expert metrical handling, while the other is

more open to mediocre poetic ability.

It would be well for the closer hold of poetic art on life,

especially for dramatic use, if less automatically regulated verse

should be revived and developed in England, above all in

America,--such flexible verse as D'Annunzio has revived and developed

in "The Daughter of Jorio."

To translate such verse into set metres of blank verse or

Alexandrines, in no way corresponding to its peculiar variability,

would be like prisoning a live creature. To do it violence by

uniformly substituting strong endings for weak endings; to reiterate

uniformly the metre arbitrarily chosen to begin with; to exclude all

grace of internal rhyme would be like binding a mobile thing from any

fluttering. Surely it would be to cage the bird whose sensitive

wings the genius of D'Annunzio has freed.

It has fallen to my especial share in this joint translation to give

to it a verse form. It has seemed to me hopeless,--and my colleagues

are agreed with me in this view--to attempt to give any glimmering

impression of the rhythmic beauty essential to the mystical soul of

this tragedy, save by seeking to reproduce for English ears, by

similarly free methods in freely stressed English verse, an audible

impression corresponding to the impression which the stresses of the

Italian verse have made on my ear as they were spoken. Hence the

desire has been not to be led by the eye, nor to transliterate

analytically the Italian effects in some recognized forms of

imitative prosody, but merely to listen and echo in English some

faint synthetic reflex of the flowing music.

CHARLOTTE PORTER.

ILLUSTRATIONS

Gabriele d'Annunzio ... _Frontispiece_

The Feast of Espousal. Act I.

"O give me peace for my offences." Act I.

Mila di Codra and Aligi. Act II.

The Parricide. Act II.

The Sacrifice of Mila di Codra. Act III.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

LAZARO Di Roio, _Father of Aligi_

CANDIA DELLA LEONESSA, _Mother of Aligi_

ALIGI, _The Shepherd-Artist_

SPLENDORE, FAVETTA, ORNELLA, _Aligi's Sisters_

VIENDA Di GIAVE, _Aligi's Bride_

MARIA Di GIAVE, _Mother of the Bride_

TEODULA DI CINZIO, LA CINERELLA, MONICA BELLA COGNA, ANNA Di BOVA,

FELAVIA, LA CATALANA, MARIA CORA: _The Kindred_

MILA Di CODRA, _the Daughter of Jorio the Sorcerer dalle Farne_

FEMO Di NERFA

JENNE DELL' ETA

IONA DI MIDIA

THE OLD HERBWOMAN

THE SAINT OF THE MOUNTAIN

THE TREASURE DIVINER

THE DEVIL-POSSESSED YOUTH

A SHEPHERD

ANOTHER SHEPHERD

A REAPER

ANOTHER REAPER

THE CROWD OF PEOPLE

THE CHORUS OF THE KINDRED

THE CHORUS OF REAPERS

THE CHORUS OF WAILERS

SCENE: The Land of the Abruzzi

TIME: Many years ago. (Placed about the sixteenth century by the

Painter Michetti, who designed the scenes and costumes for the

initial production in Milan.)

THE DAUGHTER OF JORIO

ACT I.--SCENE I.

_A room on the ground floor of a rustic house. The large entrance

door opens on a large sunlit yard. Across the door is stretched, to

prevent entrance, a scarlet woollen scarf, held in place at each end

by a forked hoe and a distaff. At one side of the door jamb is a

waxen cross to keep off evil spirits. A smaller closed door, with

its architrave adorned with boxwood green, is on the wall at the

right, and close against the same wall are three ancient wooden

chests. At the left, and set in the depth of the wall, is a chimney

and fire-place with a prominent hood; and a little at one side a

small door, and near this an ancient loom. In the room are to be

seen such utensils and articles of furniture as tables, benches,

hasps, a swift, and hanks of flax and wool hanging from light ropes

drawn between nails or hooks. Also to be seen are jugs, dishes,

plates, bottles and flasks of various sizes and materials, with many

gourds, dried and emptied. Also an ancient bread and flour chest,

the cover of it having a carved panel representing the image of the

Madonna. Beside this the water basin and a rude old table.

Suspended from the ceiling by ropes is a wide, broad board laden with

cheeses. Two windows, iron-grated and high up from the ground, give

light, one at each side of the large door, and in each of the

gratings is stuck a bunch of red buckwheat to ward off evil._

SPLENDORE, FAVETTA, ORNELLA, _the three young sisters, are kneeling

each in front of one of the three chests containing the wedding

dresses. They are bending over them and picking out suitable dresses

and ornaments for the bride. Their gay, fresh tones are like the

chanting of morning songs._

SPLENDORE

What's your will, our own Vienda?

FAVETTA

What's your will, our dear new sister?

SPLENDORE

Will you choose the gown of woolen,

Would you sooner have the silken,

Sprayed with flowrets red and yellow?

ORNELLA [_singing_]

Only of green shall be my arraying.

Only of green for Santo Giovanni,

For mid the green meadows he came to seek me,

Oili, Oili, Oila!

SPLENDORE

Look! Here is the bodice of wondrous embroidery,

And the yoke with the gleaming thread of silver,

Petticoat rich of a dozen breadths' fulness,

Necklace strung with hundred-beaded coral,--

All these given you by your new mother.

ORNELLA [_singing_]

Only of green be or gown or bridal chamber!

Oili, oili, oila!

FAVETTA

What's your will, our own Vienda?

SPLENDORE

What's your will, our dear new sister?

ORNELLA

Pendant earrings, clinging necklace,

Blushing ribbons, cherry red?

Hear the ringing bells of noonday,

Hear the bells ring out high noon!

SPLENDORE

See the kindred hither coming,

On their heads the hampers bearing,

Hampers laden with wheat all golden,

And you yet not dressed and ready!

ORNELLA

Bounding, rebounding,

Sheep pass, the hills rounding.

The wolf, through valleys winding,

The nut he seeks is finding,--

The pistachio nut is finding.

See, the Bride of the Morning!

Matinal as the field-mouse

Going forth at the dawning,

As the woodchuck and squirrel.

Hear, O hear, the bells' whirl!

[_All these words are spoken very swiftly, and at the close _ORNELLA_

laughs joyously, her two sisters joining with her._]

THE THREE SISTERS

Oh! Aligi, why then don't you come?

SPLENDORE

Oh! in velvet then must you dress?

FAVETTA

Seven centuries quite, must you rest

With your beautiful, magical Spouse?

SPLENDORE

O your father stays at the harvesting,

Brother mine, and the star of the dawning

In his sickle-blade is showing,--

In his sickle, no rest knowing.

FAVETTA

And your mother has flavored the wine-cup

And anise-seed mixed with the water,

Sticking cloves in the roast meat

And sweet thyme in the cheeses.

SPLENDORE

And a lamb of the flock we have slaughtered,

Yea, a yearling, but fattened one season,

With head markings and spottings of sable,

For the Bride and the Bridegroom.

FAVETTA

And the mantle, long-sleeved, and cowl-hooded,

For Astorgio we chose it and kept it,--

For the long-lived gray man of the mountain,

So our fate upon that he foretell us.

ORNELLA

And to-morrow will be San Giovanni,

Dear, my brother! with dawn, San Giovanni!

Up the Plaia hill then shall I hie me,

To behold once again the head severed--

In the sun's disc, the holy head severed,

On the platter all gleaming and golden,

Where again the blood runs, flows and babbles.

FAVETTA

Up, Vienda! head all golden,

Keeping long vigil; O golden sweet tresses!

Now they harvest in the grain-fields

Wheat as golden as your tresses.

SPLENDORE

Our mother was saying: "Now heed me!

Three olives I nurtured here with me;

Unto these now a plum have I added.

Ay! three daughters, and, also, a daughter."

ORNELLA

Come, Vienda, golden-plum girl!

Why delay you? Are you writing

To the sun a fair blue letter

That to-night it know no setting?

[_She laughs and the other sisters join in with her. From the small

door enters their mother, _CANDIA BELLA LEONESSA.]

CANDIA [_playfully chiding_]

Ah! you magpies, sweet cicales!

Once for over-joy of singing

One was burst upon the poplar.

Now the cock's no longer crowing

To awaken tardy sleepers.

Only sing on these cicales,--

These cicales of high noonday.

These three magpies take my roof-tree--

Take my door's wood for a tree-branch.

Still the new child does not heed them.

Oh! Aligi, Aligi, dear fellow!

[_The door opens. The beardless bridegroom appears. He greets them

with a grave voice, fixed eyes, and in an almost religious manner._]

ALIGI

All praise to Jesus and to Mary!

You, too, my mother, who this mortal

Christian flesh to me have given,

Be you blessed, my dear mother!

Blessed be ye, also, sisters,

Blossoms of my blood!

For you, for me, I cross my forehead,

That never there come before us to thwart us

The enemy subtle, in death, in life,

In heat of sun, or flame of fire,

Or poison, or any enchantment,

Or sweat unholy the forehead moist'ning.

Father, and Saviour, and Holy Spirit!

[_The sisters cross themselves and go out by the small door, carrying

the bridal dresses. _ALIGI_ approaches his mother as if in a dream._]

CANDIA

Flesh of my flesh, thus touch I your forehead

With bread, with this fair wheaten loaf of white flour,

Prepared in this bowl of a hundred years old,

Born long before thee, born long before me,

Kneaded long on the board of a hundred years old

By these hands that have tended and held you.

On the brow, thus, I touch: Be it sunny and clear!

I touch thus the breast: Be it free from all sighing!

I touch this shoulder, and that: Be it strong!

Let them bear up your arms for long labor!

Let her rest there her head gray or golden!

And may Christ to you speak and you heed him!

[_With the loaf she makes the sign of the cross above her son, who

has fallen on his knees before her._]

ALIGI

I lay down and meseemed of Jesus I dreamed.

He came to me saying: "Be not fearful."

San Giovanni said to me: "Rest in safety.

Without holy candles thou shalt not die."

Said he: "Thou shalt not die the death accursed."

And you, you have cast my lot in life, mother,

Allotted the bride you have chosen for me,--

Your son, and here, within your own house, mother,

You have brought her to couple with me,

That she slumber with me on my pillow,

That she eat with me out of my platter.

Then I was pasturing flocks on the mountain.

Now back to the mountain I must be turning.

[_His mother touches his head with the palm of her hand as if to

chase away evil thoughts._]

CANDIA

Rise up, my son! You are strangely talking.

All your words are now changing in color,

As the olive tree changes pressed by the breezes.

[_He rises, as if in a daze._]

ALIGI

But where is my father? Still nowhere I see him.

CANDIA

Gone to the harvesting, out with the reapers,

The good grain reaping, by grace of our Saviour.

ALIGI

I reaped once, too, by his body shaded,

Ere I was signed with the cross on my forehead,

When my brow scarcely reached up to his haunches.

But on my first day a vein here I severed,--

Here where the scar stays. Then with leaves he was bruising

The while he stanched the red blood from flowing,

"Son Aligi," said he unto me, "Son Aligi,

Give up the sickle and take up the sheep-crook:

Be you a shepherd and go to the mountain."

This his command was kept in obedience.

CANDIA

Son of mine, what is this pain the heart of you hurting?

What dream like an incubus over you hovers,

That these your words are like a wayfarer,

Sitting down on his road at night's coming,

Who is halting his footsteps for knowing,

Beyond attaining is his heart's desiring,

Past his ears' hearing the Ave Maria.

ALIGI

Now to the mountain must I be returning.

Mother, where is my stout shepherd's sheep-hook

Used to the pasture paths, daily or nightly?

Let me have that, so the kindred arriving,

May see thereupon all the carving I've carved.

[_His mother takes the shepherd's crook from the corner of the

fireplace._]

CANDIA

Lo! here it is, son of mine, take it: your sisters

Have hung it with garlands for Santo Giovanni,

With pinks red and fragrant festooned it.

ALIGI [_pointing out the carving on it._]

And I have them here on the bloodwood all with me,

As if by the hand I were leading my sisters.

So, along they go with me threading green pathways,

Guarding them, mother,--these three virgin damsels,--

See! three bright angels here over them hover,

And three starry comets, and three meek doves also.

And a flower for each one I have carved here,

The growing half-moon and the sun I have carved here;

This is the priestly stole; and this is the cup sacramental;

And this is the belfry of San Biagio.

And this is the river, and this my own cabin;

[_with mystery, as if with second sight_]

But who, who is this one who stands in my doorway?

CANDIA

Aligi, why is it you set me to weeping!

ALIGI

And see at the end here that in the ground enters,

Here are the sheep, and here also their shepherd,

And here is the mountain where I must be going,

Though you weep, though I weep, my mother!

[_He leans on the crook with both hands, resting his head upon them,

lost in his thoughts._]

CANDIA

But where then is Hope? What have you made of her, son?

ALIGI

Her face has shone on me seldom;

Carve her, I could not, sooth! mother.

[_From a distance a savage clamor rises._]

Mother, who shouts out so loud there?

CANDIA

The harvesters heated and frenzied,

From the craze of their passions defend them,

From sins of their blood San Giovanni restrain them!

ALIGI

Ah! Who then has drawn but that scarf there,

Athwart the wide door of our dwelling,

Leaning on it the forked hoe and distaff,

That naught enter in that is evil?

Ah! Lay there the ploughshare, the wain, and the oxen,

Pile stones there against both the door-posts,

With slaked lime from all of the lime-kilns,

The bowlder with footprints of Samson,

And Maella Hill with its snow-drifts!

CANDIA

What is coming to birth in your heart, son of mine?

Did not Christ say to you, "Be not fearful"?

Are you awake? Heed the waxen cross there,

That was blessed on the Day of Ascension,

The door-hinges, too, with holy water sprinkled,

No evil spirit can enter our doorway,

Your sisters have drawn the scarlet scarf 'cross it,--

The scarlet scarf you won in the field-match

Long before you ever became a shepherd,

In the match that you ran for the straightest furrow,--

(You still remember it, son of mine?) Thus have they stretched it

So that the kindred who must pass through there

Offer what gifts they choose when they enter.

Why do you ask, for you well know our custom?

ALIGI

Mother! mother! I have slept years seven hundred--

Years seven hundred! I come from afar off.

I remember no longer the days of my cradle.

CANDIA

What ails you, son? Like one in a dazement you answer.

Black wine was it your bride poured out for you?

And perhaps you drank it while yet you were fasting,

So that your mind is far off on a journey?

O Mary, blest Virgin! do thou grant me blessing!

[_The voice of _ORNELLA_ singing the nuptial song._]

Only of green shall be my arraying,

Only of green for Santo Giovanni.

Oili, oili, oila!

[_The _Bride_ appears dressed in green and is brought forward

joyously by the sisters._]

SPLENDORE

Lo! the bride comes whom we have apparelled

With all the joy of the spring-time season.

FAVETTA

Of gold and silver the yoke is fashioned,

But all the rest like the quiet verdure.

ORNELLA

You, mother, take her! in your arms take her!

O dear my mother, take and console her!

SPLENDORE

Shedding tears at the bedside we found her,

Thus lamenting for thinking so sorely

Of the gray head at home left so lonely.

ORNELLA

Of the jar full of pinks in the window

Her dear face not again shall lean over.

You, mother, take her! in your arms take her!

CANDIA

Daughter, daughter, with this loaf in blessing

I have touched my own son. Lo! now I divide it,

And over your fair shining head I now break it.

May our house have increase of abundance!

Be thou unto the dough as good leaven

That may swell it out over the bread-board!

Bring unto me peace and ah! do not bring strife to me!

THE THREE SISTERS

So be it! We kiss the earth, mother!

[_They kiss the ground by leaning over and touching it with

forefinger and middle finger, and then touching their lips. _ALIGI_

is kneeling on one side as if in deep prayer._]

CANDIA

O now daughter mine to my house be

As the spindle is unto the distaff;

As unto the skein is the spindle;

And as unto the loom is the shuttle!

THE THREE SISTERS

So be it! We kiss the earth, mother!

CANDIA

O Vienda! new daughter, child blessed!

Lo! midst home and pure food thus I place you.

Lo! The walls of this house--the four corners!

God willing, the sun rises there; sinks there, God willing!

This is the northward, this is the southward.

The ridgepole this, the eaves with nests hanging,

And the chain and the crane with the andirons;

There the mortar the white salt is crushed in,

And there, too, the crock it is kept in.

O new daughter! I call you to witness

How midst home things and pure food I place you

Both for this life and life everlasting.

THE THREE SISTERS

So be it! We kiss the earth, mother!

[VIENDA _rests her head, weeping, on the shoulder of the mother.

_CANDIA_ embraces her, still holding a half-loaf in each hand. The

cry of the reapers is heard nearer. _ALIGI_ rises like one suddenly

wakened and goes toward the door. The sisters follow him._]

FAVETTA

Now by the great heat are the reapers all maddened,

They are barking and snapping like dogs at each passer.

SPLENDORE

Now the last of the rows they are reaching,

With the red wine they never mix water.

ORNELLA

At the end of each row, they are drinking,

In the shade of the stack the jug lying.

FAVETTA

Lord of heaven! The heat is infernal,

At her tail bites the old gammer serpent.

ORNELLA [_chanting_]

Oh, for mercy! Wheat and wheat, and stubble, stubble,

First in sun burn the sickles, then wounds they trouble.

SPLENDORE

Oh mercy for father! for his arms tired,

And all his veins with labor swollen.

ORNELLA

O Aligi! you saddest of grooms

Keeping yet in your nostrils sleep's fumes!

FAVETTA

O, you know very well the rhyme turned about.

You have placed the good loaf in the jug,

You have poured the red wine in the sack.

SPLENDORE

Lo! now the kindred! Lo! now the women! they are coming.

Up, up! Vienda! and cease your weeping.

Mother! How now! They are coming. Set her free then.

Up! Golden tresses, cease your weeping!

You have wept too long. Your fine eyes are reddened!

[VIENDA _dries her tears on her apron and taking the apron up by the

two corners receives in it the two pieces of the loaf from the

mother._]

CANDIA

In blood and in milk return it to me!

Goldenhair, come now, sit on the settle.

Oh! Aligi, you too, come sit here! and wake up!

One of you here, one of you there, thus stay ye,

Children, thus, at each side of the door.

Be it wide open for all to see in there

The wide bed so wide that in order to fill it--

The mattress to fill--I used up the straw-stack.

Ay! the whole of the stack to the bare pole,

With the crock sticking up on the tiptop!

[CANDIA_ and _ PLENDORE_ place a small bench each side of the door,

where the couple sit composed and silent, looking at each other.

_ORNELLA_ and _FAVETTA_ looking out toward the road at the large

door. The yard is in dazzling sunlight._]

FAVETTA

See! They are coming up the road slowly

In single file, all: Teodula di Cinzio

And Cinerella, Monica, Felavia,

And Catalana delle Tre Bisacce,

Anna di Bova, Maria Cora ... but who is the last one?

CANDIA

Come on then, Splendore, do help me spread out now

The bedspread I wove of silk doubled,

Woven for you, Vienda, dear green bud,

As green as the grass of the meadow,

The sweet grass, early bee, where you hover.

ORNELLA

Who is last? Can you tell us, Vienda?

Oh! I see yellow grain in the hampers,

And it glitters like gold. Who can she be?

Gray at the temple, beneath the white linen,

Gray as the feathery bryony branches.

FAVETTA

Your mommy! dear child, is she your mommy?

[VIENDA _rises suddenly as if to rush to her mother. In so doing she

lets the bread fall from her apron. She stops, shocked. _ALIGI_

rises and stands so as to prevent the mother from seeing._]

ORNELLA [_greatly concerned, in a frightened voice_]

O Lord save us! Pick it up again.

Pick it up, kiss it, ere mamma see it.

[VIENDA, _terrified and overwhelmed by frightful superstition, is

stricken immovable, rigid, staring at the two half-loaves with glassy

eyes._]

FAVETTA

Pick it up, kiss it, sad is the angel.

Make a vow silently, promise greatly,

Call on San Sisto, lest Death should appear.

[_From within are heard the blows given with the hand on mattress and

pillows and the wind carries to the ear the clamor of the reapers._]

ORNELLA

San Sisto! San Sisto!

Oh! hear ye, and list, oh!

Black death, evil sprite,

By day, by night,

Chase from our walls!

Drive from our souls!

Oh! crumble and tear

The evil eye's snare,

As the sign of the cross I make!

[_While murmuring the conjuring words she rapidly gathers up the two

half-loaves, pressing each to _VIENDA'S_ lips, kissing them herself,

and then placing each in the apron, making the sign of the cross over

them. She then leads the bridal couple to their benches, as the

first of the women kindred appears at the door with the offerings,

stopping in front of the scarlet scarf. The women each carry on the

head a hamper of wheat adorned with flowing ribbons of various

colors. On each basket rests a loaf of bread, and on top of each

loaf a wild flower. _ORNELLA_ and _FAVETTA_ take each one end of the

scarf while still leaving hoe and distaff in place against the wall,

but so posed as to bar entrance._]

FIRST WOMAN, TEODULA DI CINZIO

Ohe! Who watches the bridges?

FAVETTA and ORNELLA [_in unison_]

Love open-eyed and Love blind.

TEODULA

To cross over there I desire.

FAVETTA

To desire is not to acquire.

TEODULA

I clambered the mountain ridges,

Now down through the valley I'll wind.

ORNELLA

The torrent has taken the bridges,

Too swift runs the river, you'll find.

TEODULA

Set me over in your boat.

FAVETTA

She leaks too fast to keep afloat.

TEODULA

I'll calk her with tow and resin.

ORNELLA

Leaks full seven split and stove her.

TEODULA

Then I'll give you pieces seven.

On your shoulder bear me over.

FAVETTA

Oh, no! Help of mine you must lack.

The wild water fills me with fright.

[Illustration: THE FEAST OF ESPOUSAL. _Act I._]

TEODULA

Lend me a lift on your back.

I'll give you this silver piece bright.

ORNELLA

Too little! Your eight bits, indeed,

Would not keep my ribbons new.

TEODULA

Tuck up your skirt. Plunge in bare-kneed.

A ducat of gold I'll give to you.

[_The first woman, _TEODULA_, gives _ORNELLA_ a piece of money. She

receives it in her left hand, while the other women come closer to

the door. The bridal pair remain seated and silent. _CANDIA_ and

_SPLENDORE_ enter from the small door._]

ORNELLA and FAVETTA [in unison]

Pass on then, O you fair Lady!

And all these in your company!

[ORNELLA _puts the money in her bosom and takes away the distaff,

_FAVETTA_, the hoe. They then leave both leaning against the wall.

_ORNELLA_, with a quick movement, withdraws the scarf, making it wave

like a slender pennant. The women then enter one by one, in line,

still holding their baskets balanced on their heads._]

TEODULA

Peace be with you, Candia della Leonessa!

And peace, too, with you, son of Lazaro di Roio!

And peace to the bride whom Christ has given!

[_She places her basket at the bride's feet and, taking out of it a

handful of wheat, she scatters it over _VIENDA'S_ head. She then

takes another handful and scatters it over _ALIGI'S.]

This is the peace that is sent you from Heaven:

That on the same pillow your hair may whiten,

On the same pillow to old age ending.

Nor sin nor vengeance be between you,

Falsehood nor wrath, but love, love only,

Daily, till time for the long, long journey.

[_The next woman repeats the same ceremony and action, the others

meanwhile remaining in line awaiting their turn, with the hampers on

their heads. The last one, the mother of the bride, remains

motionless near the threshold, and dries her face of tears and

perspiration. The noise of the riotous reapers increases and seems

to come nearer. Besides this noise, from time to time, in pauses,

now and again the ringing of bells is heard._]

CINERELLA

For this is peace and this is plenty.

[_Suddenly a woman's cry is heard outside, coming from the yard._]

THE VOICE OF THE UNKNOWN WOMAN

Help! Help! For Jesus' sake, our Saviour!

People of God, O people of God, save ye me!

[_Running, panting from fright and exertion, covered with dust and

briars, like a hart run down by a pack of hunting dogs, a woman

enters. Her face is covered by a mantle. She looks about

bewildered, and withdraws to the corner near the fireplace, opposite

to the bridal pair._]

THE UNKNOWN WOMAN

People of God! O save ye me!

The door there! O shut tight the door there,

Put ye up all the bars! Securely.--

They are many, and all have their sickles.

They are crazed,--crazed with heat and strong drinking.

They are brutal with lust and with cursing.

Me would they hunt,--they would seize me;

They would hunt me, they would seize me,--me,--

The creature of Christ, ay, me,--

The unhappy one, doing no evil!

Passing I was--alone--by the roadside.--

They saw me.--They cried.--They insulted.

They hurled sods and stones.--They chased me.--

Ay! like unto hounds that are hungry,

They would seize me and tear me and torture.

They are following me, O most wretched!

They are hunting me down, people of God!

Help ye! Save me! The door, O shut it to!

The door!--They are maddened--will enter!

They will take me from here,--from your hearthstone--

(The deed even God cannot pardon)!--

From your hearthstone that blest is and sacred

(And aught else but that deed God pardons)--

And my soul is baptized,--I am Christian--

Oh! help! O for San Giovanni's sake, help me!

For Mary's sake, her of the seven dolors!

For the sake of my soul.--For your own soul!

[_She stays by the hearth, all the women gathering at the side

opposite her. _VIENDA_ close to her mother and godmother. _ALIGI_

stands outside the circle unmoved, leaning on his crook. Suddenly

_ORNELLA_ rushes to the door, closes it, and bars it. A somewhat

inimical murmur arises from the circle of women._]

Ah! tell me your name,--how they call you,--

Your name, that wherever I wander,

Over mountains, in valleys I bless it,

You, who in pity are first here,

Though in years yours are least in the counting!

[_Overcome she lets herself drop on the hearth, bowed over upon

herself with her head resting on her knees. The women are huddled

together like frightened sheep. _ORNELLA_ steps forward toward the

stranger._]

ANNA

Who is this woman? Holy Virgin!

MARIA

And is this the right way to enter

The dwelling of God-fearing people?

MONICA

And Candia, you! What say you?

LA CINERELLA

Will you let the door stay bolted?

ANNA

Is the last to be born of your daughters,

The first to command in your household?

LA CATALANA

She will bring down upon you bad fortune,

The wandering she-dog, for certain!

FELAVIA

Did you mark how she entered that instant

While yet Cinerella was pouring

On Vienda her handful of wheat flour

Ere Aligi had got his share fully?

[ORNELLA _goes a step nearer the wretched fugitive. _FAVETTA_ leaves

the circle and joins her._]

MONICA

How now! Are we, then, to remain here,

With our baskets still on our heads loaded?

MARIA

Sure it would be a terrible omen

To put down on the ground here our baskets

Before giving our offerings to them.

MARIA DI GIAVE

My daughter, may Saint Luke defend you!

Saint Mark and Saint Matthew attend you!

Grope for your scapulary round your neck hanging,

Hold it closely and offer your prayer.

[SPLENDORE, _too, comes forward and joins the sisters. The three

girls stand before the fugitive, who is still prostrate, panting and

trembling with fear._]

ORNELLA

You are over sore-pressed, sister,

And dusty and tired, you tremble.

Weep no more, since now you are safe here.

You are thirsty. Your drink is your tears.

Will you drink of our water and wine? Your face bathe?

[_She takes a small bowl, draws water from the earthen receptacle,

and pours wine into it._]

FAVETTA

Are you of the valleys or elsewhere?

Do you come from afar? And whither

Do you now bend your steps, O woman!

All desolate thus by the roadside!

SPLENDORE

Some malady ails you, unlucky one?

A vow then of penitence made you?

To the Incoronata were travelling?

May the Virgin answer your prayers!

[_The fugitive lifts her head slowly and cautiously, with her face

still hidden in the mantle._]

ORNELLA [_offering the bowl_]

Will you drink, now, daughter of Jesus?

[_From outside a noise is heard as of bare feet shuffling in the yard

and voices murmuring. The stranger, again stricken with fear, does

not drink from the proffered bowl but places it on the hearth and

retires trembling to the further corner of the chimney._]

THE UNKNOWN ONE

They are here, oh, they come! They are seeking

For me! They will seize me and take me.

For mercy's sake, answer not, speak not.

They will go if they think the house empty,

And do nothing evil; but if you

Are heard, if you speak or you answer

They will certainly know I have entered.

They will open the door, force it open.

With the heat and the wine they are frenzied,

Mad dogs! and here is but one man,

And many are they and all have their sickles,

Their scythes.--Oh! for dear pity's sake,

For the sake of these innocent maidens,

For your sake, dear daughter of kindness! You, women holy!

THE BAND OF REAPERS [_in chorus outside at the door_]

The dwelling of Lazaro! Surely

Into this house entered the woman.

--They have closed the door, they have barred it!

--Look out for her there in the stubble.

--Search well in the hay there, Gonzelvo.

--Hah! Hah! In the dwelling of Lazaro,

Right into the maw of the wolf. Hah! Hah!

--O! Candia della Leonessa!

Ho! all of you there! Are you dead?

[_They knock at the door._]

Oh! Candia della Leonessa!

Do you offer a shelter to harlots?

--Do you find that you need such temptation

To still the fain flesh of your husband?

--If the woman be there, I say, open!

Open the door, good folks, give her to us

And on a soft bed we will lay her.

--Bring her out to us! Bring her out to us,

For we only want to know her better.

To the hay-cock, the hay-cock, the hay-cock!

[_They knock and clamor. _ALIGI_ moves toward the door._]

THE UNKNOWN ONE [whispering imploringly]

Young man, O young man, pray have mercy!

O have mercy! Do not open!

Not for my sake, not mine, but for others,

Since they will not seize now on me only,

Since imbruted are they. You must hear it!--

In their voices?--How now the fiend holds them?

The bestial mad fiend of high noonday,

The sweltering dog-days' infection.

If they gain entry here, what can you do?

[_The greatest excitement prevails among the women, but they restrain

themselves._]

LA CATALANA

Ye see now to what shame we all are submitted,

We women of peace here, for this woman,

She who dares not show her face to us!

ANNA

Open, Aligi, open the door there,

But wide enough to let her pass out.

Grip hold of her and toss her out there,

Then close and bar the entrance, giving praises

To Lord Jesus our salvation.

And perdition overtake all wretches!

[_The shepherd turns toward the woman, hesitating. _ORNELLA_,

stepping forward, stops his way; making a sign of silence, she goes

to the door._]

ORNELLA

Who is there? Who knocks at the door there?

VOICES OF THE REAPERS [_outside, all confusedly_]

--Silence there! Hush up! Hush--sh! Hush--sh!

--There is some one within who is speaking,

--O Candia della Leonessa,

Is it you who are speaking? Open! Open!

--We are the reapers here of Norca,

All the company are we of Cataldo.

ORNELLA

I am not Candia. For Candia is busied now.

Abroad is she since early morning.

A VOICE

And you? Say who are you then?

ORNELLA

I belong to Lazaro, Ornella,

My father is Lazaro di Roio.

But ye, say ye, why ye have come here?

A VOICE

Open, we but want to look inside there.

ORNELLA

Open, that I cannot. For my mother

Locked me in here with her kindred

Going out, for we are marrying.

The betrothal we are having of my brother,

Aligi, the shepherd, who is taking

To wife here, Vienda di Giave.

A VOICE

Did you then not let in a woman,

But a short while ago, a woman frightened?

ORNELLA

A woman? Then in peace go away.

Seek ye elsewhere to find her.

O reapers of Norca! I return to my loom here,

For each cast that is lost by my shuttle

Will be lost and can never be gathered.

God be with you to keep you from evil,

O ye reapers of Norca! May he give you

Strength for your work in the grain fields

Till by evening you reach the end of your labor,

And I, also, poor woman, the ending

Of the breadth of this cloth I am weaving.

[_Suddenly at the side window two muscular hands seize the iron bars

and a brutal face peers in._]

THE REAPER [_shouting in a loud voice_]

Ho! Captain! the woman is in there!

She's inside! She's inside! The youngster

Was fooling us here, yes, the youngster!

The woman is in there! See, inside there,

In the corner. I see her, I see her!

And there too is the bride and the bridegroom,

And the kindred who brought them their presents.

This is the feast of the grain-pouring spousal.

Ah, ho! Captain! A fine lot of girls there!

CHORUS OF REAPERS [_outside_]

--If the woman's within, we say, open!

For you it is shame to protect her.

--Send her out here! Send her out here!

And we will give her some honey.

--Ho! open there, open, you, and give her to us.

--To the hay-cock with her, to the hay-cock.

[_They clamor and shout. The women inside are all confused and

agitated. The unknown one keeps in the shadow, shrinking close to

the wall, as if she sought to sink herself in it._]

CHORUS OF KINDRED

--O help us, O holy Virgin!

Is this what the vigil gives us,

The eve of Santo Giovanni?

--What disgrace is this you give us,--what sorrow

This that you give us, Beheaded one!--

Just to-day of all days.

--Candia, have you lost your reason?

--O Candia, have you lost your senses?

--Ornella, and all your sisters with you?

--She was always a bit of a madcap.

--Give her up to them, give her, give her

To these hungry, ravening wolves!

THE REAPER [_still holding the bars_]

Shepherd Aligi, Oho! shepherd Aligi,

Will you give, at your feast of espousal,

A place to a sheep that is rotten,--

A sheep that is mangy and lousy?

Take care she infect not your sheepfold,

Or give to your wife her contagion.

O Candia della Leonessa,

Know you whom in your home there you harbor,

In your home there with your new-found daughter?

The daughter of Jorio, the daughter

Of the Sorcerer of Codra!

She-dog roamer o'er mountains and valleys,

A haunter of stables and straw-stacks,

Mila the shameless? Mila di Codra.

The woman of stables and straw-heaps,

Very well known of all companies;

And now it has come to be our turn,--

The turn of the reapers of Norca.

Send her out here, send her out here!

We must have her, have her, have her!

[ALIGI, _pale and trembling, advances toward the wretched woman, who

remains persistently in the shadow; and pulling off her mantle, he

uncovers her face._]

MILA DI CODRA

No! No! It is not true! A cruel lie!

A cruel lie! Do not believe him,

Do not believe what such a dog says!

It is but the cursed wine speaking

And out of his mouth bubbling evil.

If God heard it, may He to poison

Turn his black words, and he drown in 't!

No! It is not true. A cruel lie!

[_The three sisters stop their ears while the reaper renews his

vituperations._]

THE REAPER

You shameless one! you are common,

Well known are you as the ditches,

The field-grass to dry straw turning,

Under your body's sins burning,

Men for your body have gambled

And fought with pitchforks and sickles.

Only wait just a bit for your man, Candia,

And you'll see! He'll come back to you bandaged,

For sure! From a fight with Rainero,

A fight in the grain-field of Mispa,--

For whom but for Jorio's daughter?

And now you keep her in your home, here,

To give her to your man Lazaro,

To have him find her here all ready.

Aligi! Vienda di Giave!

Give up to her your bridal bedstead!

And all ye women, go and scatter wheat-grains,--

Upon her head the golden wheat-grains!

We'll come back ourselves here with music,

A little later and ask for the wine-jug.

[_The reaper jumps down and disappears mid an outbreak of coarse

laughter from the others._]

CHORUS OF REAPERS [_outside_]

Hand us out the wine-jug. That's the custom,

--The wine-jug, the wine-jug, and the woman!

[ALIGI _stands rigid, with his eyes fixed upon the floor, perplexed,

still holding in his hand the mantle he has taken._]

MILA

O innocence, O innocence, of all these

Young maidens here, you have heard not,

The filthiness, you have heard not,

Oh! Tell me you have heard not, heard not!--

At least not you, Ornella, oh, no, not

You who have wished to save me!

ANNA

Do not go near her, Ornella! Or would you

Have her ruin you? She, the daughter of the Sorcerer,

Must to every one bring ruin.

MILA

She comes to me because behind me

She sees here weeping the silent angel--

The guardian over my soul keeping vigil.

[ALIGI _turns quickly toward _MILA_ at these words, and gazes at her

fixedly._]

MARIA CORA

Oh! Oh! it is sacrilege! Sacrilege!

LA CINERELLA

Ha! She has blasphemed, she has blasphemed,

Against the heavenly angel.

FELAVIA

She will desecrate your hearthstone,

Candia, unless hence you chase her.

ANNA

Out with her, out, in good time, Aligi,

Seize her, and out to the dogs toss her!

LA CATALANA

Well I know you, Mila di Codra,

Well at Farne do they fear you,

And well I know your doings.

You brought death to Giovanna Cametra,

And death to the son of Panfilo.

You turned the head of poor Alfonso,

Gave Tillura the evil sickness,

Caused the death of your father, even,

Who now in damnation damns you!

MILA

May thou, God, protect his spirit

And unto peace his soul gather.

All! You it is who have blasphemed

Against a soul that is departed

And may your blaspheming speeches

Fall on you, whenever death fronts you!

[CANDIA, _seated on one of the chests, is sad and silent. Now she

rises, passes through the restless circle of women, and advances

toward the persecuted one, slowly, without anger._]

CHORUS OF REAPERS

Ahey! Ahey! How long to wait?

Have you come to an agreement?

--Oh, I say, shepherd, ho! you shepherd,

For yourself, then, do you keep her?

--Candia, what if Lazaro come back now?

--Is she then unwilling? But open,

Open! A hand we will lend her.

And meanwhile give us the wine-jug,

The wine-jug, the wine-jug's the custom!

[_Another reaper peers in through the grating._]

THE REAPER

Mila di Codra, come out here!

For you that will be much the better.

To try to escape us is useless,

We'll seek now the oak-tree shady,

And throw dice for the one to have you,

That the chance for us all be equal,

Now, we will not quarrel for you,

As Lazaro did with Rainero,

No, we'll have no useless bloodshed.

But, now, if you don't come out here,

Ere the last one turns up his dice-box,

Then this door we all shall break open

And carry things here with a free hand.

You are warned now; best heed this your warning,

Candia della Leonessa!

[_He jumps down and the clamor is much abated. The ringing of the

village church bells can be heard in the distance._]

CANDIA

Woman, hear me. Lo, I am the mother

Of these three innocent maidens,

Also of this youth, the bridegroom.

We were in peace in our home, here,

In peace and in rest with God's favor,

And blessing with home rites the marriage,

You may see the wheat still in the baskets

And in the blest loaf the fresh flower!

You have entered in here and brought us

Suddenly conflict and sorrow,

Interrupted the kindred's giving,

In our hearts sowing thoughts of dark omen,

That have set my children weeping,

And my bowels yearn and weep with them.

All to chaff our good wheat grain is turning,

And a worse thing still may follow.

It is best for you to go now.

Go thou with God, knowing surely

He will help you, if you trust Him.

Oh! There is cause for all this our sorrow.

We would fain have desired your safety.

Yet now, turn your steps hence, swiftly,

So that none of this house need harm you.

The door, this my son will now open.

[_The victim listens in humility with bent head, pale and trembling.

_ALIGI_ steps toward the door and listens. His face shows great

sorrow._]

MILA

Christian mother, lo! the earth here

I kiss where your feet have trodden,

And I ask of you forgiveness.

With my heart in my hand lying,

In the palm of my hand, grieving,

For this sorrow of my bringing.

But I did not seek your dwelling:

I was blinded, with fear blinded,

And the Father, He, all-seeing,

Led me here thus to your fireside,

So that I, the persecuted,

Might find mercy by your fireplace,

Mercy making this day sacred.

O have mercy! Christian mother.

O have mercy! and each wheat grain

Resting here within these hampers

God will return a hundred-fold.

LA CATALANA [_whispering_]

Listen not. Whoever listens

Will be lost. The false one is she.

Oh! I know! Her father gave her,

To make her voice so sweet and gentle,

Evil roots of secret magic.

ANNA

Just see now how Aligi's spellbound!

MARIA CORA

Beware! beware! lest she give him

Fatal illness. O Lord, save us!

Have you not heard what all the reapers

Have been saying about Lazaro?

MONICA

Shall we stay here then till vespers

With these baskets on our heads thus?

I shall put mine on the ground soon.

[CANDIA _gazes intently upon her son, who is fastened upon _MILA_.

Suddenly fear and rage seize her, and she cries aloud._]

CANDIA

Begone, begone, you sorcerer's

Daughter! Go to the dogs! Begone!

In my house remain no longer!

Fling open the door, Aligi!

MILA

Mother of Ornella,--Love's own mother,

All, but not this, God forgiveth.

Trample on me, God forgiveth,

Cut off my hands, yet God forgiveth,

Gouge out my eyes, pluck my tongue out,

Tear me to shreds, yet God forgiveth,

Strangle me, yet God forgiveth,

But if you now (heed me, O heed me!

While the bells are ringing for Santo Giovanni).

If now you seize upon this body,--

This poor tortured flesh signed in Christ's name,

And toss it out there in that courtyard,

In sight of these your spotless daughters,

Abandoning it to sin of that rabble,

To hatred and to brutal lusting,

Then, O mother of Ornella,

Mother of innocence in so doing,

Doing that thing, God condemns you!

LA CATALANA

She was never christened, never,

Her father was never buried

In consecrated ground; under

A thorn-bush he lies. I swear it.

MILA

Demons are behind you, woman!

Black and foul and false your mouth is!

LA CATALANA

O Candia, hear her, hear her,

Curses heaping! But a little,

And she'll drive you from your dwelling,

And then all the reapers threatened

Will most surely fall upon us.

ANNA DI BOVA

Up, Aligi! Drag her out there!

MARIA CORA

See you not how your Vienda,

Your young bride, looks like one dying?

LA CINERELLA

What kind of a man are you? Forsaken

Thus of all force in your muscles?

Is the tongue within your mouth, then,

Dried and shrivelled that you speak not?

FELAVIA

You seem lost. How then? Did your senses

Go astray afar off in the mountain?--

Did you lose your wits down in the valley?

MONICA

Look! He hasn't let go of her mantle,

Since the time he took it from her.

To his fingers it seems rooted.

LA CATALANA

Do you think your son Aligi's

Mind is going? Heaven help us!

CANDIA

Aligi, Aligi! You hear me?

What ails you? Where are you? Gone are your senses?

What is coming to birth in your heart, son?

[_Taking the mantle out of his hand, she throws it to the woman._]

I myself will open the door; take her

And push her out of here straightway.

Aligi, to you I speak. You hear me?

Ah! verily you have been sleeping

For seven hundred hundred years,

And all of us are long forgotten.

Kindred! God wills my undoing.

I hoped these last days would bring solace

And that God would now give me repose,

That less bitterness now need I swallow;

But bitterness overpowers me.

My daughters! Take ye my black mantle

From out of the ancient chest there,

And cover my head and my sorrows,

Within my own soul be my wailing!

[_The son shakes his head, his face showing perplexity and sorrow,

and he speaks as one in a dream._]

ALIGI

What is your will of me, mother?

Unto you said I: "Ah! lay there

Against both of the door-posts the ploughshare,

The wain and the oxen, put sods there and stones there,

Yea, the mountain with all of its snow-drifts."

What did I say then? And how answered you?

"Heed the waxen cross that is holy,

That was blest on the Day of Ascension,

And the hinges with holy water sprinkled."

O, what is your will that I do? It was night still

When she took the road that comes hither.

Profound, then, profound was my slumber,

O mother! although you had not mingled for me,

The wine with the seed of the poppy.

Now that slumber of Christ falls and fails me:

And though well I know whence this proceedeth,

My lips are yet stricken with dumbness.

O woman! what then is your bidding?

That I seize her here now by her tresses,--

That I drag her out there in the courtyard,--

That I toss her for these dogs to raven?

Well! So be it! So be it!--I do so.

[ALIGI _advances toward _MILA_, but she shrinks within the fireplace,

clinging for refuge._]

MILA

Touch me not! Oh! you, you are sinning,

Against the old laws of the hearthstone--

You are sinning the great sin that's mortal

Against your own blood and the sanction

Of your race, of your own ancient kinfolk.

Lo! over the stone of the fireplace

I pour out the wine that was given

To me by your sister, in blood bound;

So now if you touch me, molest me,

All the dead in your land, in your country,

All those of the long years forgotten,

Generation to past generation,

That lie underground eighty fathoms

Will abhor you with horror eternal.

[_Taking the bowl of wine, _MILA_ pours it over the inviolate hearth.

The women utter fierce and frantic cries._]

THE CHORUS OF KINDRED

O woe! She bewitches--bewitches the fireplace!

--She poured with the wine there a mixture.

I saw it, I saw her. 'T was stealthy!

--O take her, O take her, Aligi,

And force her away from the hearthstone.

By the hair, O seize her, seize her!

--Aligi, fear you naught, fear nothing,

All her conjuring yet will be nothing.

--Take her away and shiver the wine-bowl!

Shiver it there against the andirons.

--Break the chain loose and engirdle

Her neck with it, three times twist it.

--She has surely bewitched the hearthstone.

-Woe! Woe for the house that totters!

Ah! What lamenting will here be lamented!

THE CHORUS OF REAPERS

Oho there! All quarrelling, are you?

We are waiting here and we 're watching.

We have cast the dice, we know the winner.

Bring her out to us, you shepherd!

Yes, yes! Or the door we'll break down.

[_They join in blows on the door and in clamoring._]

ANNA DI BOVA

Hold on! Hold on! and have patience a little,

But a little while longer, good menfolk.

Aligi is taking her. Soon you will have her.

[ALIGI, _like one demented, takes her by the wrists, but she resists

and tries to free herself._]

MILA

No! No! You are sinning, are sinning.

Crush under your feet my forehead

Or stun it with blows of your sheep-hook,

And when I am dead toss me out there.

No, no! God's punishment on you!

From the womb of your wife serpents

To you shall be born and brought forth.

You shall sleep no more, no more,

And rest shall forsake your eyelids,

From your eyes tears of blood shall gush forth.

Ornella, Ornella, defend me,

Aid me, O thou, and have mercy!

Ye sisters in Christ, do thou help me!

[_She frees herself and goes to the three sisters, who surround her.

Blind with rage and horror, _ALIGI_ lifts his hook to strike her on

the head. Immediately his three sisters begin to cry and moan. This

stops him at once; he lets the hook fall on his knees and with open

arms he stares behind her._]

ALIGI

Mercy of God! O give me forgiveness!

I saw the angel, silent, weeping.

He is weeping with you, O my sisters!

And at me he is gazing and weeping.

Even thus shall I see him forever,

Till the hour for my passing, yea! past it.

I have sinned thus against my own hearth-stone,

My own dead and the land of my fathers;

It will spurn me and scorn me forever,

Deny rest to my weary dead body!

For my sins, sisters, purification,

Seven times, seven times, I do ask it.

Seven days shall my lips touch the ashes,

And as many times more as the tears shed

From your gentle eyes, O my sisters!

Let the angel count them, my sisters,

And brand on my heart all their number!

It is thus that I ask you forgiveness.

Before God thus I ask you, my sisters,

Oh! pray you for brother Aligi,

Who must now return to the mountain.

And she who has suffered such shame here,

I pray you console her, refresh her

With drink, wipe the dust from her garments,

Bathe her feet with water and vinegar.

Comfort her! I wished not to harm her.

Spurred on was I by these voices.

And those who to this wrong have brought me

Shall suffer for many days greatly.

Mila di Codra! sister in Jesus,

O give me peace for my offences.

These flowerets of Santo Giovanni

Off from my sheep-hook now do I take them

And thus at your feet here I place them.

Look at you I cannot. I'm shamefaced.

Behind you I see the sad angel.

But this hand which did you offence here,

I burn in that fire with live embers.

[_Dragging himself on his knees to the fireplace, he bends over and

finds a burning ember. Taking it with his left hand, he puts the

point of it in the palm of the right._]

[Illustration: "O GIVE ME PEACE FOR MY OFFENCES." _Act I._]

MILA

It is forgiven. No, no. Do not wound yourself.

For me, I forgive you, and God shall receive

Your penitent prayer. Rise up from the fire-place!

One only, God only may punish;

And He that hand hath given to you

To guide your flocks to the pasture.

And how then your sheep can you pasture

If your hand is infirm, O Aligi?

For me, in all humbleness, I forgive you,

And your name I shall ever remember,

Morn, eve, and midday shall my blessing

Follow you with your flocks in the mountains.

THE CHORUS OF REAPERS [_outside_]

--Oho, there! Oho, there! How now?

--What is the row? Do you fool us?

--Ho! We'll tear down the door there.

--Yes, yes! Take that timber, the plough-beam.

--Shepherd, we'll not have you fool us.

Now, now, that iron there, take it!

Down with it! Crash down the door there!

--Ho, shepherd Aligi! Now answer!

One, then! Two! Three, and down goes it!

[_The heavy breathing of the men lifting the timber and iron is

heard._]

ALIGI

For you, for me, and for all my people,

I make the sign of the cross!

[_Rising and going toward the door, he continues._]

Reapers of Norca! This door I open.

[_The men answer in a unanimous clamor. The wind brings the sound of

the bells. _ALIGI_ draws the bars and bolts and silently crosses

himself, then he takes down from the wall the cross of wax and kisses

it._]

Women, God's servants, cross yourselves praying.

[_All the women cross themselves and kneeling murmur the litany._]

WOMEN [_together_]

Kyrie eleison!

Lord have mercy upon us!

Christe eleison!

Christ have mercy upon us!

Eyrie eleison!

Lord have mercy upon us!

Christe audi nos!

O Christ hear us!

Christe exaudi nos!

O Christ hearken unto us!

[_The shepherd then lays the cross on the threshold between the hoe

and the distaff and opens the door. In the yard glittering in the

fierce sun the linen-clad reapers appear._]

ALIGI

Brothers in Christ! Behold the cross

That was blest on the Day of Ascension!

I have placed it there on the threshold,

That you may not sin against this gentle

Lamb of Christ who here finds refuge,

Seeking safety in this fireplace.

[_The reapers, struck silent and deeply impressed, uncover their

heads._]

I saw there standing behind her

The angel who guards her, silent,

These eyes that shall see life eternal

Saw her angel that stood there weeping.

Look, brothers in Christ, I swear it!

Turn back to your wheat-fields and reap them,

Harm you not one who has harmed you never!

Nor let the false enemy beguile you

Any longer with his potions.

Reapers of Norca, heaven bless you!

May the sheaves in your hands be doubled!

And may Santo Giovanni's head severed

Be shown unto you at the sunrise,

If, for this, to-night you ascend the hill Plaia.

And wish ye no harm unto me, the shepherd,

To me, Aligi, our Saviour's servant!

[_The kneeling women continue the litanies, _CANDIA_ invoking, the

others responding._]

CANDIA and CHORUS OF THE KINDRED

Mater purissima, Mother of Purity,

ora pro nobis. pray for us.

Mater castissima, Mother of Chastity,

ora pro nobis. pray for us.

Mater inviolata, Mother Inviolate,

ora pro nobis. pray for us.

[_The reapers bow themselves, touch the cross with their hands and

then touch their lips and silently withdraw toward the glittering

fields outside, _ALIGI_ leaning against the jamb of the door

following with his eyes their departure, the silence meanwhile broken

only by voices coming from the country pathways outside._]

FIRST VOICE

O! turn back, Lazaro di Roio.

ANOTHER VOICE

Turn back, turn back, Lazaro!

[_The shepherd, startled and shading his face with his hands, looks

toward the path._]

CANDIA and THE WOMEN

Virgo veneranda, Virgin venerated,

Virgo predicanda, Virgin admonishing,

Virgo potens, Virgin potential,

ora pro nobis. pray for us.

ALIGI

Father, father, what is this? Why are you bandaged?

Why are you bleeding, father? Speak out and tell me,

O ye men of the Lord! Who wounded him?

[LAZARO _appears at the door with his head bandaged, two men in white

linen supporting him. _CANDIA_ stops praying, rises to her feet and

goes to the entrance._]

ALIGI

Father, halt there! The cross lies there on the door-sill,

You cannot pass through without kneeling down.

If this blood be unjust blood you cannot pass through.

[_The two men sustain the tottering man and he falls guiltily on his

knees outside the doorway._]

CANDIA

O daughters, my daughters, 't was true then!

O weep, my daughters! let mourning enfold us!

[_The daughters embrace their mother. The kindred before rising put

their hampers down on the ground. _MILA_ takes up her mantle and

still kneeling wraps herself up in it, hiding her face. Almost

creeping, she approaches the door toward the jamb opposite that where

_ALIGI_ leans. Silently and swiftly she rises and leans against the

wall, and stands there wrapt and motionless, watching her chance to

disappear._]