THE DUCHESS [aside, as they pay their devoir].
The same words, the same faces, — the same love!
I have been overfearful. These are few;
But these, at least, stand firmly: these are mine.
As many come as may; and if no more,
‘T is that these few suffice — they do suffice!
What succor may not next year bring me? Plainly,
I feared too soon. [To the COURTIERS.] I thank you, sirs: all thanks!
VALENCE [aside, as the DUCHESS passes from one group to another, conversing].
‘T is she — the vision this day last year brought,
When, for a golden moment at our Cleves,
She tarried in her progress hither. Cleves
Chose me to speak its welcome, and I spoke
— Not that she could have noted the recluse
— Ungainly, old before his time who gazed.
Well, Heaven’s gifts are not wasted, and that gaze
Kept, and shall keep me to the end, her own!
She was above it — but so would not sink
My gaze to earth! The People caught it, hers —
Thenceforward, mine; but thus entirely mine,
Who shall affirm, had she not raised my soul
Ere she retired and left me — them? She turns —
There’s all her wondrous face at once! The ground
Reels and . . . [suddenly occupying himself with his paper].
These wrongs of theirs I have to plead!
THE DUCHESS [to the Courtiers].
Nay, compliment enough! and kindness’ self
Should pause before it wish me more such years.
‘T was fortunate that thus, ere youth escaped,
I tasted life’s pure pleasure — one such, pure,
Is worth a thousand, mixed — and youth’s for pleasure:
Mine is received; let my age pay for it.
GAUCELME.
So, pay, and pleasure paid for, thinks your Grace,
Should never go together?
GUIBERT.
How, Sir Gaucelme?
Hurry one’s feast down unenjoyingly
At the snatched breathing-intervals of work?
As good you saved it till the dull day’s-end
When, stiff and sleepy, appetite is gone.
Eat first, then work upon the strength of food!
THE DUCHESS.
True: you enable me to risk my future,
By giving me a past beyond recall.
I lived, a girl, one happy leisure year:
Let me endeavor to be the Duchess now!
And so, — what news, Sir Guibert, spoke you of?
[As they advance a little, and GUIBERT speaks — ]
— That gentleman?
VALENCE [aside].
I feel her eyes on me.
GUIBERT [to VALENCE].
The Duchess, sir, inclines to hear your suit.
Advance! He is from Cleves.
VALENCE [coming forward. Aside].
Their wrongs — their wrongs!
THE DUCHESS.
And you, sir, are from Cleves? How fresh in mind,
The hour or two I passed at queenly Cleves!
She entertained me bravely, but the best
Of her good pageant seemed its standers-by
With insuppressive joy on every face!
What says my ancient famous happy Cleves?
VALENCE.
Take the truth, lady — you are made for truth!
So think my friends: nor do they less deserve
The having you to take it, you shall think,
When you know all — nay, when you only know
How, on that day you recollect at Cleves,
When the poor acquiescing multitude
Who thrust themselves with all their woes apart
Into unnoticed corners, that the few,
Their means sufficed to muster trappings for,
Might fill the foreground, occupy your sight
With joyous faces fit to bear away
And boast of as a sample of all Cleves
— How, when to daylight these crept out once more,
Clutching, unconscious, each his empty rags
Whence the scant coin, which had not half bought bread,
That morn he shook forth, counted piece by piece,
And, well-advisedly, on perfumes spent them
To burn, or flowers to strew, before your path
— How, when the golden flood of music and bliss
Ebbed, as their moon retreated, and again
Left the sharp black-point rocks of misery bare
— Then I, their friend, had only to suggest
“Saw she the horror as she saw the pomp!”
And as one man they cried “He speaks the truth:
Show her the horror! Take from our own mouths
Our wrongs and show them, she will see them too!”
This they cried, lady! I have brought the wrongs.
THE DUCHESS.
Wrongs? Cleves has wrongs — apparent now and thus?
I thank you! In that paper? Give it me!
VALENCE.
(There, Cleves!) In this! (What did I promise, Cleves?)
Our weavers, clothiers, spinners are reduced
Since . . . Oh, I crave your pardon! I forget
I buy the privilege of this approach,
And promptly would discharge my debt. I lay
This paper humbly at the Duchess’ feet.
[Presenting GUIBERT’S paper.]
GUIBERT.
Stay! for the present . . .
THE DUCHESS.
Stay, sir? I take aught
That teaches me their wrongs with greater pride
Than this your ducal circlet. Thank you, sir!
[The DUCHESS reads hastily , then, turning to the COURTIERS — ]
What have I done to you? Your deed or mine
Was it, this crowning me? I gave myself
No more a title to your homage, no,
Than church-flowers, born this season, wrote the words
In the saint’s-book that sanctified them first.
For such a flower, you plucked me; well, you erred —
Well, ‘t was a weed; remove the eye-sore quick!
But should you not remember it has lain
Steeped in the candles’ glory, palely shrined,
Nearer God’s Mother than most earthly things?
— That if’t be faded ‘tis with prayer’s sole breath —
That the one day it boasted was God’s day?
Still, I do thank you! Had you used respect,
Here might I dwindle to my last white leaf,
Here lose life’s latest freshness, which even yet
May yield some wandering insect rest and food:
So, fling me forth, and — all is best for all!
[After a pause.] Prince Berthold, who art Juliers’ Duke it seems —
The King’s choice, and the Emperor’s, and the Pope’s —
Be mine, too! Take this People! Tell not me
Of rescripts, precedents, authorities,
— But take them, from a heart that yearns to give!
Find out their love, — I could not; find their fear, —
I would not; find their like, — I never shall,
Among the flowers! [Taking off her coronet.]
Colombe of Ravestein
Thanks God she is no longer Duchess here!
VALENCE [advancing to GUIBERT].
Sir Guibert, knight, they call you — this of mine
Is the first step I ever set at court.
You dared make me your instrument, I find;
For that, so sure as you and I are men,
We reckon to the utmost presently:
But as you are a courtier and I none,
Your knowledge may instruct me. I, already,
Have too far outraged, by my ignorance
Of courtier-ways, this lady, to proceed
A second step and risk addressing her:
— I am degraded — you let me address!
Out of her presence, all is plain enough
What I shall do — but in her presence, too,
Surely there’s something proper to be done.
[To the others.] You, gentles, tell me if I guess aright —
May I not strike this man to earth?
THE COURTIERs [as GUIBERT springs forward, with-holding him].
Let go!
— The clothiers’ spokesman, Guibert? Grace a churl?
THE DUCHESS [to VALENCE].
Oh, be acquainted with your party, sir!
He’s of the oldest lineage Juliers boasts;
A lion crests him for a cognizance;
“Scorning to waver” — that’s his’scutcheon’s word;
His office with the new Duke — probably
The same in honor as with me; or more,
By so much as this gallant turn deserves.
He’s now, I dare say, of a thousand times
The rank and influence that remain with her
Whose part you take! So, lest for taking it
You suffer . . .
VALENCE.
I may strike him then to earth?
GUIBERT [falling on his knee].
Great and dear lady, pardon me! Hear once!
Believe me and be merciful — be just!
I could not bring myself to give that paper
Without a keener pang than I dared meet
— And so felt Clugnet here, and Maufroy here
— No one dared meet it. Protestation’s cheap, —
But, if to die for you did any good,
[To GAUCELME.] Would not I die, sir? Say your worst of me!
But it does no good, that’s the mournful truth.
And since the hint of a resistance, even,
Would just precipitate, on you the first,
A speedier ruin — I shall not deny,
Saving myself indubitable pain,
I thought to give you pleasure (who might say?)
By showing that your only subject found
To carry the sad notice, was the man
Precisely ignorant of its contents;
A nameless, mere provincial advocate;
One whom ‘twas like you never saw before,
Never would see again. All has gone wrong;
But I meant right, God knows, and you, I trust!
THE DUCHESS.
A nameless advocate, this gentleman?
— (I pardon you, Sir Guibert!)
GUIBERT [rising, to VALENCE].
Sir, and you?
VALENCE.
— Rejoice that you are lightened of a load.
Now, you have only me to reckon with.
THE DUCHESS.
One I have never seen, much less obliged?
VALENCE.
Dare I speak, lady?
THE DUCHESS.
Dare you! Heard you not
I rule no longer?
VALENCE.
Lady, if your rule
Were based alone on such a ground as these
[Pointing to the COURTIERS.]
Could furnish you, — abjure it! They have hidden
A source of true dominion from your sight.
THE DUCHESS.
You hear them — no such source is left . . .
VALENCE.
Hear Cleves!
Whose haggard craftsmen rose to starve this day,
Starve now, and will lie down at night to starve,
Sure of a like to-morrow — but as sure
Of a most unlike morrow-after-that,
Since end things must, end howsoe’er things may.
What curbs the brute-force instinct in its hour?
What makes — instead of rising, all as one,
And teaching fingers, so expert to wield
Their tool, the broadsword’s play or carbine’s trick,
— What makes that there’s an easier help, they think,
For you, whose name so few of them can spell,
Whose face scarce one in every hundred saw, —
You simply have to understand their wrongs,
And wrongs will vanish so, — still trades are plied,
And swords lie rusting, and myself stand here?
There is a vision in the heart of each
Of justice, mercy, wisdom, tenderness
To wrong and pain, and knowledge of its cure:
And these embodied in a woman’s form
That best transmits them, pure as first received,
From God above her, to mankind below.
Will you derive your rule from such a ground,
Or rather hold it by the suffrage, say,
Of this man — this — and this?
THE DUCHESS [after a pause].
You come from Cleves.
How many are at Cleves of such a mind?
VALENCE [from his paper].
“We, all the manufacturers of Cleves — ”
THE DUCHESS.
Or stay, sir — lest I seem too covetous —
Are you my subject? such as you describe,
Am I to you, though to no other man?
VALENCE [from his paper].
— ”Valence, ordained your Advocate at Cleves” —
THE DUCHESS [replacing the coronet.]
Then I remain Cleves’ Duchess! Take you note,
While Cleves but yields one subject of this stamp,
I stand her lady till she waves me off!
For her sake, all the Prince claims I withhold;
Laugh at each menace; and, his power defying,
Return his missive with its due contempt!
[Casting it away.
GUIBERT [picking it up].
— Which to the Prince I will deliver, lady,
(Note it down, Gaucelme) — with your message too!
THE DUCHESS.
I think the office is a subject’s, sir!
— Either . . . how style you him? — my special guarder
The Marshal’s — for who knows but violence
May follow the delivery? — Or, perhaps,
My Chancellor’s — for law may be to urge
On its receipt! — Or, even my Chamberlain’s —
For I may violate established form!
[To VALENCE.] Sir, for the half-hour till this service ends,
Will you become all these to me?
VALENCE [falling on his knee.]
My liege!
THE DUCHESS.
Give me!
[The Courtiers present their badges of office.]
[Putting them by.] Whatever was their virtue once,
They need new consecration. [Raising VALENCE.]
Are you mine?
I will be Duchess yet!
[She retires.
THE COURTIERS.
Our Duchess yet!
A glorious lady! Worthy love and dread!
I’ll stand by her. — And I, whate’er betide!
GUIBERT [to VALENCE].
Well done, well done, sir!
I care not who knows,
You have done nobly and I envy you —
Tho’ I am but unfairly used, I think:
For when one gets a place like this I hold,
One gets too the remark that its mere wages,
The pay and the preferment, make our prize.
Talk about zeal and faith apart from these,
We ‘re laughed at — much would zeal and faith subsist
Without these also! Yet, let these be stopped,
Our wages discontinue, then, indeed,
Our zeal and faith, (we hear on every side,)
Are not released — having been pledged away
I wonder, for what zeal and faith in turn?
Hard money purchased me my place! No, no —
I’m right, sir — but your wrong
is better still,
If I had time and skill to argue it.
Therefore, I say, I’ll serve you, how you please —
If you like, — fight you, as you seem to wish
(The kinder of me that, in sober truth,
I never dreamed I did you any harm) . . .
GAUCELME.
— Or, kinder still, you’ll introduce, no doubt,
His merits to the Prince who’s just at hand,
And let no hint drop he’s made Chancellor
And Chamberlain and Heaven knows what beside!
CLUGNET [to VALENCE].
You stare, young sir, and threaten! Let me say,
That at your age, when first I came to court,
I was not much above a gentleman;
While now . . .
VALENCE.
You are Head-Lackey? With your office
I have not yet been graced, sir!
OTHER COURTIERS [to CLUGNET].
Let him talk!
Fidelity, disinterestedness,
Excuse so much! Men claim my worship ever
Who staunchly and steadfastly . . .
Enter ADOLF.
ADOLF.
The Prince arrives.
COURTIERS.
Ha? How?
ADOLF.
He leaves his guard a stage behind
At Aix, and enters almost by himself.
1st COURTIER.
The Prince! This foolish business puts all out.
2nd COURTIER.
Let Gaucelme speak first!
3rd COURTIER.
Better I began
About the state of Juliers: should one say
All’s prosperous and inviting him?
4th COURTIER.
— Or rather,
All’s prostrate and imploring him?
5th COURTIER.
That’s best
Where’s the Cleves’ paper, by the way?
4th COURTIER [to VALENCE].
Sir — sir —
If you’ll but lend that paper — trust it me,
I’ll warrant . . .
5th COURTIER.
Softly, sir — the Marshal’s duty!
CLUGNET.
Has not the Chamberlain a hearing first
By virtue of his patent?
GAUCELME.
Patents? — Duties?
All that, my masters, must begin again!
One word composes the whole controversy:
We ‘re simply now the Prince’s!
THE OTHERS.
Ay — the Prince’s!
Enter SABYNE.
SABYNE.
Adolf! Bid . . . Oh, no time for ceremony!
Where’s whom our lady calls her only subject?
She needs him. Who is here the Duchess’s?
Valence [startingfrom his reverie].
Most gratefully
I follow to her feet.
Act III
Afternoon.
SCENE. The Vestibule.
Enter PRINCE BERTHOLD and MELCHIOR.
BERTHOLD.
Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series Page 282