Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

  IV

  The scene of the first act of Niccolini’s tragedy is near the Capitoline Hill, in Rome, where two rival leaders, Frangipani and Giordano Pierleone, are disputing in the midst of their adherents. The former is a supporter of the papal usurpations; the latter is a republican chief, who has been excommunicated for his politics, and is also under sentence of banishment; but who, like Arnaldo, remains in Rome in spite of Church and State. Giordano withdraws to the Campid�glio with his adherents, and there Arnaldo suddenly appears among them. When the people ask what cure there is for their troubles, Arnaldo answers, in denunciation of the papacy:

  Liberty and God.

  A voice from the orient,

  A voice from the Occident,

  A voice from thy deserts,

  A voice of echoes from the open graves,

  Accuses thee, thou shameless harlot! Drunk

  Art thou with blood of saints, and thou hast lain

  With all the kings of earth. Ah, you behold her!

  She is clothed on with purple; gold and pearls

  And gems are heaped upon her; and her vestments

  Once white, the pleasure of her former spouse,

  That now’s in heaven, she has dragged in dust.

  Lo, is she full of names and blasphemies,

  And on her brow is written Mystery!

  Ah, nevermore you hear her voice console

  The afflicted; all she threatens, and creates

  With her perennial curse in trembling souls

  Ineffable pangs; the unhappy — as we here

  Are all of us — fly in their common sorrows

  To embrace each other; she, the cruel one,

  Sunders them in the name of Jesus; fathers

  She kindles against sons, and wives she parts

  From husbands, and she makes a war between

  Harmonious brothers; of the Evangel she

  Is cruel interpreter, and teaches hate

  Out of the book of love. The years are come

  Whereof the rapt Evangelist of Patmos

  Did prophesy; and, to deceive the people,

  Satan has broken the chains he bore of old;

  And she, the cruel, on the infinite waters

  Of tears that are poured out for her, sits throned.

  The enemy of man two goblets places

  Unto her shameless lips; and one is blood,

  And gold is in the other; greedy and fierce

  She drinks so from them both, the world knows not

  If she of blood or gold have greater thirst....

  Lord, those that fled before thy scourge of old

  No longer stand to barter offerings

  About thy temple’s borders, but within

  Man’s self is sold, and thine own blood is trafficked,

  Thou son of God!

  The people ask Arnaldo what he counsels them to do, and he advises them to restore the senate and the tribunes, appealing to the glorious memories of the place where they stand, the Capitoline Hill:

  Where the earth calls at every step, “Oh, pause,

  Thou treadest on a hero!”

  They desire to make him a tribune, but he refuses, promising, however, that he will not withhold his counsel. Whilst he speaks, some cardinals, with nobles of the papal party, appear, and announce the election of the new Pope, Adrian. “What is his name?” the people demand; and a cardinal answers, “Breakspear, a Briton.” Giordano exclaims:

  Impious race! you’ve chosen Rome for shepherd

  A cruel barbarian, and even his name

  Tortures our ears.

  Arnaldo. I never care to ask

  Where popes are born; and from long suffering,

  You, Romans, before heaven, should have learnt

  That priests can have no country....

  I know this man; his father was a thrall,

  And he is fit to be a slave. He made

  Friends with the Norman that enslaves his country;

  A wandering beggar to Avignon’s cloisters

  He came in boyhood and was known to do

  All abject services; there those false monks

  He with astute humility cajoled;

  He learned their arts, and ‘mid intrigues and hates

  He rose at last out of his native filth

  A tyrant of the vile.

  The cardinals, confounded by Arnaldo’s presence and invectives, withdraw, but leave one of their party to work on the fears of the Romans, and make them return to their allegiance by pictures of the desolating war which Barbarossa, now approaching Rome to support Adrian, has waged upon the rebellious Lombards at Rosate and elsewhere. Arnaldo replies: —

  Romans,

  I will tell all the things that he has hid;

  I know not how to cheat you. Yes, Rosate

  A ruin is, from which the smoke ascends.

  The bishop, lord of Monferrato, guided

  The German arms against Chieri and Asti,

  Now turned to dust; that shepherd pitiless

  Did thus avenge his own offenses on

  His flying flocks; himself with torches armed

  The German hand; houses and churches saw

  Destroyed, and gave his blessing on the flames.

  This is the pardon that you may expect

  From mitered tyrants. A heap of ashes now

  Crowneth the hill where once Tortona stood;

  And drunken with her wine and with her blood,

  Fallen there amidst their spoil upon the dead,

  Slept the wild beasts of Germany: like ghosts

  Dim wandering through the darkness of the night,

  Those that were left by famine and the sword,

  Hidden within the heart of thy dim caverns,

  Desolate city! rose and turned their steps

  Noiselessly toward compassionate Milan.

  There they have borne their swords and hopes: I see

  A thousand heroes born from the example

  Tortona gave. O city, if I could,

  O sacred city! upon the ruins fall

  Reverently, and take them in my loving arms,

  The relics of thy brave I’d gather up

  In precious urns, and from the altars here

  In days of battle offer to be kissed!

  Oh, praise be to the Lord! Men die no more

  For chains and errors; martyrs now at last

  Hast thou, O holy Freedom; and fain were I

  Ashes for thee! — But I see you grow pale,

  Ye Romans! Down, go down; this holy height

  Is not for cowards. In the valley there

  Your tyrant waits you; go and fall before him

  And cover his haughty foot with tears and kisses.

  He’ll tread you in the dust, and then absolve you.

  The People. The arms we have are strange and few,

  Our walls Are fallen and ruinous.

  Arnaldo. Their hearts are walls

  Unto the brave....

  And they shall rise again,

  The walls that blood of freemen has baptized,

  But among slaves their ruins are eternal.

  People. You outrage us, sir!

  Arnaldo. Wherefore do ye tremble

  Before the trumpet sounds? O thou that wast

  Once the world’s lord and first in Italy,

  Wilt thou be now the last?

  People. No more! Cease, or thou diest!

  Arnaldo, having roused the pride of the Romans, now tells them that two thousand Swiss have followed him from his exile; and the act closes with some lyrical passages leading to the fraternization of the people with these.

  The second act of this curious tragedy, where there may be said to be scarcely any personal interest, but where we are aware of such an impassioned treatment of public interests as perhaps never was before, opens with a scene between the Pope Adrian and the Cardinal Guido. The character of both is finely studied by the poet; and Guido, the type of ecclesiastical submission, has not
more faith in the sacredness and righteousness of Adrian, than Adrian, the type of ecclesiastical ambition, has in himself. The Pope tells Guido that he stands doubting between the cities of Lombardy leagued against Frederick, and Frederick, who is coming to Rome, not so much to befriend the papacy as to place himself in a better attitude to crush the Lombards. The German dreams of the restoration of Charlemagne’s empire; he believes the Church corrupt; and he and Arnaldo would be friends, if it were not for Arnaldo’s vain hope of re�stablishing the republican liberties of Rome. The Pope utters his ardent desire to bring Arnaldo back to his allegiance; and when Guido reminds him that Arnaldo has been condemned by a council of the Church, and that it is scarcely in his power to restore him, Adrian turns upon him:

  What sayest thou?

  I can do all. Dare the audacious members

  Rebel against the head? Within these hands

  Lie not the keys that once were given to Peter?

  The heavens repeat as ‘t were the word of God,

  My word that here has power to loose and bind.

  Arnaldo did not dare so much. The kingdom

  Of earth alone he did deny me. Thou

  Art more outside the Church than he.

  Guido (kneeling at Adrian’s feet). O God,

  I erred; forgive! I rise not from thy feet

  Till thou absolve me. My zeal blinded me.

  I’m clay before thee; shape me as thou wilt,

  A vessel apt to glory or to shame.

  Guido then withdraws at the Pope’s bidding, in order to send a messenger to Arnaldo, and Adrian utters this fine soliloquy:

  At every step by which I’ve hither climbed

  I’ve found a sorrow; but upon the summit

  All sorrows are; and thorns more thickly spring

  Around my chair than ever round a throne.

  What weary toil to keep up from the dust

  This mantle that’s weighed down the strongest limbs!

  These splendid gems that blaze in my tiara,

  They are a fire that burns the aching brow,

  I lift with many tears, O Lord, to thee!

  Yet I must fear not; He that did know how

  To bear the cross, so heavy with the sins

  Of all the world, will succor the weak servant

  That represents his power here on earth.

  Of mine own isle that make the light o’ the sun

  Obscure as one day was my lot, amidst

  The furious tumults of this guilty Rome,

  Here, under the superb effulgency

  Of burning skies, I think of you and weep!

  The Pope’s messenger finds Arnaldo in the castle of Giordano, where these two are talking of the present fortunes and future chances of Rome. The patrician forebodes evil from the approach of the emperor, but Arnaldo encourages him, and, when the Pope’s messenger appears, he is eager to go to Adrian, believing that good to their cause will come of it. Giordano in vain warns him against treachery, bidding him remember that Adrian will hold any falsehood sacred that is used with a heretic. It is observable throughout that Niccolini is always careful to make his rebellious priest a good Catholic; and now Arnaldo rebukes Giordano for some doubts of the spiritual authority of the Pope. When Giordano says:

  These modern pharisees, upon the cross,

  Where Christ hung dying once, have nailed mankind,

  Arnaldo answers:

  He will know how to save that rose and conquered;

  And Giordano replies:

  Yes, Christ arose; but Freedom cannot break

  The stone that shuts her ancient sepulcher,

  For on it stands the altar.

  Adrian, when Arnaldo appears before him, bids him fall down and kiss his feet, and speak to him as to God; he will hear Arnaldo only as a penitent. Arnaldo answers:

  The feet

  Of his disciples did that meek One kiss

  Whom here thou representest. But I hear

  Now from thy lips the voice of fiercest pride.

  Repent, O Peter, that deniest him,

  And near the temple art, but far from God!

  The name of the king

  Is never heard in Rome. And if thou are

  The vicar of Christ on earth, well should’st thou know

  That of thorns only was the crown he wore.

  Adrian. He gave to me the empire of the earth

  When this great mantly I put on, and took

  The Church’s high seat I was chosen to;

  The word of God did erst create the world,

  And now mine guides it. Would’st thou that the soul

  Should serve the body? Thou dost dream of freedom,

  And makest war on him who sole on earth

  Can shield man from his tyrants. O Arnaldo,

  Be Wise; believe me, all thy words are vain,

  Vain sound that perish or disperse themselves

  Amidst the wilderness of Rome. I only

  Can speak the words that the whole world repeats.

  Arnaldo. Thy words were never Freedom’s; placed between

  The people and their tyrants, still the Church

  With the weak cruel, with the mighty vile,

  Has been, and crushed in pitiless embraces

  That emperors and pontiffs have exchanged.

  Man has been ever.

  Why seek’st thou empire here, and great on earth

  Art mean in heaven? Ah! vainly in thy prayer

  Thou criest, “Let the heart be lifted up!”

  ‘T is ever bowed to earth.

  Now, then, if thou wilt,

  Put forth the power that thou dost vaunt; repress

  The crimes of bishops, make the Church ashamed

  To be a step-mother to the poor and lowly.

  In all the Lombard cities every priest

  Has grown a despot, in shrewd perfidy

  Now siding with the Church, now with the Empire.

  They have dainty food, magnificent apparel,

  Lascivious joys, and on their altars cold

  Gathers the dust, where lies the miter dropt,

  Forgotten, from the haughty brow that wears

  The helmet, and no longer bows itself

  Before God’s face in th’ empty sanctuaries;

  But upon the fields of slaughter, smoking still,

  Bends o’er the fallen foe, and aims the blows

  O’ th’ sacrilegious sword, with cruel triumph

  Insulting o’er the prayers of dying men.

  There the priest rides o’er breasts of fallen foes,

  And stains with blood his courser’s iron heel.

  When comes a brief, false peace, and wearily

  Amidst the havoc doth the priest sit down,

  His pleasures are a crime, and after rapine

  Luxury follows. Like a thief he climbs

  Into the fold, and that desired by day

  He dares amid the dark, and violence

  Is the priest’s marriage. Vainly did Rome hope

  That they had thrown aside the burden vile

  Of the desires that weigh down other men.

  Theirs is the ungrateful lust of the wild beast,

  That doth forget the mother nor knows the child.

  ... On the altar of Christ,

  Who is the prince of pardon and of peace,

  Vows of revenge are registered, and torches

  That are thrown into hearts of leaguered cities

  Are lit from tapers burning before God.