Were no dishonour done to fatherhood
But honour shown to wedlock. Here is spread
The feast, the bride-feast of my love and thine,
Whereat the cup of death shall serve our lips
To drink forgetfulness of all but love.
Herein thou shalt not thwart me.
ALBOVINE.
God forbid.
ROSAMUND.
God hath forbidden: and God shall be obeyed.
Bid thy Narsetes play the cup-bearer,
And I will pour the wine: my hand shall fill
The sacramental draught of love that seals
Our eucharist of wedlock.
ALBOVINE.
Yea, I know
To drink with thee is even to drink with God.
Thou art good as any God was ever.
ROSAMUND.
Ay?
We know not till we die.
ALBOVINE.
Thou art wise and true
As ever maid was born of the oldworld north
In the oldworld years of legend. Bid Narsetes
Bring thee the chalice: thou shalt mix the draught
Whence we will drink life, if true love be life,
Even from the lipless mouth of bone that speaks
Death.
ROSAMUND.
I will mix it well with honey and herb
Sweet as the mead our fathers drank, and dreamed
Their gods so drank in heaven — draughts deep and strong
As life is strong and death is deep. I go
To bid Narsetes hither. [Exit.
ALBOVINE.
Nay, by God,
Whoever God be, never Christ or Thor
Beheld or blessed a nobler wife, whose love
Was found through proof of purity by fire
More like our northern stars and snows and suns,
And sane in strong sufficiency of soul
As womanhood by godhead from the womb
Elected and exalted.
Enter NARSETES.
NARSETES.
King, thy wife
Hath given me back thy message given her.
ALBOVINE.
Ay?
And thou hast given her back my cup, then?
NARSETES.
King,
I have given it. Loth to give it if I were,
Ye know: she knows as thou: thou knowest as she.
ALBOVINE.
What ails thee to distaste thy duty? Man,
Thou shouldst be glad, being loyal. Knowest thou not
Her will it was that we should pledge therein
To-night, this hour, our lifelong love, and seal it
More surely so than priest or prayer can seal?
NARSETES.
Her will it was, I know, not thine. I would
Thou hadst not yielded up to hers thy will.
ALBOVINE.
Thou liest: I have not yielded it: I have given
Love, willing as the springtide sea gives up
Her will to the eastern sea-wind’s.
NARSETES.
Love should give
No more than love should crave of love: and this
Is such a gift as hate might crave of death
Or priests of God when angered.
ALBOVINE.
Hark thee, man.
Thou art old, and when I loved thee first and found thee
My lord and leader down the ways of war,
My master born by right of manfulness
And steersman through the surf of battle, time
Gaped as a gulf between us: sire and son
We might be: now I bid thee hold thy peace,
Lest all these memories perish, and their death
Give life more strong than theirs to wrath, and leave thee
Shelterless as a waif of the air when storm
Drives bird and beast to deathward. What I bade thee
I bid thee do, and leave me.
NARSETES.
King, I go. [Exit.
ALBOVINE.
What, have I played the Berserk with my friend?
So should not kings. What meant he? Men wax old,
And age eats out the natural sense of love
Which gives the soul sight of such nobler things
As trust may see by grace of truth more fair
Than doubt would fear to dream of. Rosamund
Knows more by might of faith and love than he.
And yet I would, and yet I would not, fool
As even in mine own eyes I am, she had not
Given me this proof, desired of me this sign,
How clear her soul is toward me save of love,
To attest her pardon of me. Would it were
Sunrise to-morrow!
Enter ALMACHILDES and HILDEGARD.
Whence come these, to bring
Sunrise about me? Nay, I bade you be
Here. Does thy memory too not fail thee, boy,
Burnt out by stress of summer
ALMACHILDES.
No.
ALBOVINE,
Nor hers?
HILDEGARD.
How might it, king? Thou art good to us.
ALBOVINE.
All things born
Seem good to lovers in their spring of love,
And all men should be. Maiden, God doth well
To give us foresight of the sight of heaven
By looking in such eyes as love like thine
Kindles and veils for love’s sake. Fain was I
To see my boy’s bride and her bridegroom here
Before the feast broke in on us, and bless
Their love with mine — if mine be blessing.
HILDEGARD.
Sire,
As the earth gives thanks in spring for the April sun
I would and cannot yield you thanks for this.
ALMACHILDES.
I cannot thank at all. I cannot thank
God.
ALBOVINE.
Art thou mazed with love? For her thou canst not
Thank God? What feverish doubt of love or life
Crazes or cramps thy spirit?
ALMACHILDES.
I cannot say.
My heart, if any heart be left in me,
Is as it was not thankless: yet, my king,
I know not how to thank thee.
ALBOVINE.
Thank me not:
I did not bid thee thank me. Love thy love,
And God be with you: so may God be found
Thankworthier. Keep some heart in thee awhile
For God’s and her sake.
ALMACHILDES.
All I may I will.
Re-enter ROSAMUND, followed by NARSETES and Guests.
ALBOVINE.
Sit, friends and warriors: thou, my boy, next me,
And by my wife thy bride. This night, that leaves
But two days more for June to burn and live,
Plights with my queen’s troth mine in life and death
This last one time for ever, in the cup
Whence none shall drink hereafter. Not in scorn,
Sirs, but in honour now the draught is pledged
Between us, ere this relic stand enshrined
And hallowed as a saint’s on the altar. Queen,
I drink to thee.
ROSAMUND.
I thank thee. Good Narsetes,
Give him the chalice. Women slain by fire
Thirst not as I to pledge thee.
[As ALBOVINE is about to take the cup,
ALMACHILDES rises and stabs him.
ALBOVINE.
Thou, my boy? [Dies.
ROSAMUND.
I. But he hears not. Now, my warrior guests,
I drink to the onward passage of his soul
Death. Had my hand turned coward or played me false,
This man that is my hand, and less than I
And less than he bloodguilty, this my death
Had b
een my husband’s: now he has left it me.
[Drinks.
How innocent are all but he and I
No time is mine to tell you. Truth shall tell.
I pardon thee, my husband: pardon me. [Dies.
NARSETES.
Let none make moan. This doom is none of man’s.
THE DUKE OF GANDIA
CONTENTS
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
SCENE I
SCENE II
SCENE III
SCENE IV
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
POPE ALEXANDER VI.
FRANCESCO BORGIA, Duke of Gandia }his sons
CÆSAR BORGIA, Cardinal of Valencia }
DON MICHELE COREGLIA, called MICHELOTTO, agent for Cæsar Borgia.
GIORGIO SCHIAVONE, a Tiber waterman.
TWO ASSASSINS.
AN OFFICER of the Papal Household.
VANNOZZA CATANEI, surnamed LA ROSA, concubine to the Pope.
LUCREZIA BORGIA, daughter to Alexander and Vannozza.
SCENE: ROME.
TIME: JUNE 14 - JULY 22, 1497.
SCENE I
The Vatican
Enter CÆSAR and VANNOZZA
CÆSAR
Now, mother, though thou love my brother more,
Am I not more thy son than he?
VANNOZZA
Not more.
CÆSAR
Have I more Spaniard in me - less of thee?
Did our Most Holiest father thrill thy womb
With more Italian passion than brought forth
Me?
VANNOZZA
Child, thine elder never was as thou -
Spake never thus.
CÆSAR
I doubt it not. But I,
Mother, am not mine elder. He desires
And he enjoys the life God gives him - God,
The Pope our father, and thy sacred self,
Mother beloved and hallowed. I desire
More.
VANNOZZA
Thou wast ever sleepless as the wind -
A child anhungered for thy time to be
Man. See thy purple about thee. Art thou not
Cardinal?
CÆSAR
Ay; my father’s eminence
Set so the stamp on mine. I will not die
Cardinal.
VANNOZZA
Cæsar, wilt thou cleave my heart?
Have I not loved thee?
CÆSAR
Ay, fair mother - ay.
Thou hast loved my father likewise. Dost thou love
Giulia - the sweet Farnese - called the Fair
In all the Roman streets that call thee Rose?
And that bright babe Giovanni, whom our sire,
Thy holy lord and hers, hath stamped at birth
As duke of Nepi?
VANNOZZA
When thy sire begat
Thee, sinful though he ever was - fierce, fell,
Spaniard - I fear me, Jesus for his sins
Bade Satan pass into him.
CÆSAR
And fill thee full,
Sweet sinless mother. Fear it not. Thou hast
Children more loved of him and thee than me -
Our bright Francesco, born to smile and sway,
And her whose face makes pale the sun in heaven,
Whose eyes outlaugh the splendour of the sea,
Whose hair has all noon’s wonders in its weft,
Whose mouth is God’s and Italy’s one rose,
Lucrezia.
VANNOZZA
Dost thou love them then? My child,
How should not I then love thee?
CÆSAR
God alone
Knows. Was not God - the God of love, who bade
His son be man because he hated man,
And saw him scourged and hanging, and at last
Forgave the sin wherewith he had stamped us, seeing
So fair a full atonement - was not God
Bridesman when Christ’s crowned vicar took to bride
My mother?
VANNOZZA
Speak not thou to me of God.
I have sinned, I have sinned - I would I had died a nun,
Cloistered!
CÆSAR
There too my sire had found thee. Priests
Make way where warriors dare not - save when war
Sets wide the floodgates of the weirs of hell.
And what hast thou to do with sin? Hath he
Whose sin was thine not given thee there and then
God’s actual absolution? Mary lived
God’s virgin, and God’s mother: mine art thou,
Who am Christlike even as thou art virginal.
And if thou love me or love me not God knows,
And God, who made me and my sire and thee,
May take the charge upon him. I am I.
Somewhat I think to do before my day
Pass from me. Did I love thee not at all,
I would not bid thee know it.
VANNOZZA
Alas, my son!
CÆSAR
Alas, my mother, sounds no sense for men -
Rings but reverberate folly, whence resounds
Returning laughter. Weep or smile on me,
Thy sunshine or thy rainbow softens not
The mortal earth wherein thou hast clad me. Nay,
But rather would I see thee smile than weep,
Mother. Thou art lovelier, smiling.
VANNOZZA
What is this
Thou hast at heart to do? God’s judgment hangs
Above us. I that girdled thee in me
As Mary girdled Jesus yet unborn
- Thou dost believe it? A creedless heretic
Thou art not?
CÆSAR
I? God’s vicar’s child?
VANNOZZA
Be God
Praised! I, then, I, thy mother, bid thee, pray,
Pray thee but say what hungers in thy heart,
And whither thou wouldst hurl the strenuous life
That works within thee.
CÆSAR
Whither? Am not I
Hinge of the gate that opens heaven - that bids
God open when my sire thrusts in the key -
Cardinal? Canst thou dream I had rather be
Duke?
Enter FRANCESCO
FRANCESCO
Wilt thou take mine office, Cæsar mine?
I heard thy laugh deride it. Mother, whence
Comes that sweet gift of grace from dawn to dawn
That daily shows thee sweeter?
CÆSAR
Knowest thou none
Lovelier?
VANNOZZA
My Cæsar finds me not so fair.
Thou art over fond, Francesco.
CÆSAR
Nay, no whit.
Our heavenly father on earth adores no less
Our mother than our sister: and I hold
His heart and eye, his spirit and his sense,
Infallible.
Enter the POPE
ALEXANDER
Jest not with God. I heard
A holy word, a hallowing epithet,
Cardinal Cæsar, trip across thy tongue
Lightly.
CÆSAR
Most holiest father, I desire
Paternal absolution - when thy laugh
Has waned from lip and eyelid.
ALEXANDER
Take it now,
And Christ preserve thee, Cæsar, as thou art,
To serve him as I serve him. Rose of mine,
My rose of roses, whence has fallen this dew
That dims the sweetest eyes love ever lit
With light that mocks the morning?
VANNOZZA
Nay, my lord,
I know not - nay, I knew not if I wept.
ALEXANDER
Our sons and Christ’s and Peter’s whom we praise,
Are they - ar
e these - fallen out?
FRANCESCO
Not I with him,
Nor he, I think, with me.
CÆSAR
Forbid it, God!
The God that set thee where thou art, and there
Sustains thee, bids the love he kindles bind
Brother to brother.
ALEXANDER
God or no God, man
Must live and let man live - while one man’s life
Galls not another’s. Fools and fiends are men
Who play the fiend that is not. Why shouldst thou,
Girt with the girdle of the church, and given
Power to preside on spirit and flesh - or thou,
Clothed with the glad world’s glory - priest or prince,
Turn on thy brother an evil eye, or deem
Your father God hath dealt his doom amiss
Toward either or toward any? Hath not Rome,
Hath not the Lord Christ’s kingdom, where his will
Is done on earth, enough of all that man
Thirsts, hungers, lusts for - pleasure, pride, and power -
To sate you and to share between you? Whence
Should she, the godless heathen’s goddess once,
Discord, heave up her hissing head again
Between love’s Christian children - love’s? Hath God
Cut short the thrill that glorifies the flesh,
Chilled the sharp rapturous pang that burns the blood,
Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series) Page 289