From her inglorious urn
Will Italy arise?
Will golden days return
'Neath the azure of her skies?
This is done, oh, this is done,
When the broken land is one;
This shall be, oh, this shall be,
When the slavish land is free.
The Public Walks of Florence.
FAZIO, FALSETTO, DANDOLO, PHILARIO.
Yonder, my lord, is the Lady Aldabella,
The star of admiration to all Florence.
There, my lord, there is a fair drooping robe-
Would that I were a breath of wind to float it!
Gentlemen, by your leave I would salute her:
You'll meet me anon in the Piazza.
[Exeunt all but Fazio. Now, lofty woman, we are equal now, And I will front thee in thy pitch of pride.
And why not, lady? She is exquisite,
Bashfully, humbly exquisite; yet Florence
May be as proud of her, as of the richest,
That fire her with the lustre of their state.
And why not, lady ?
Why! I know not why-
Oh your philosophy, 'tis ever curious;
Poor lady Nature must tell all, and clearly,
To its inquisitorship. We'll not think on 't:
It fell from me un'wares; words will start forth,
When the mind wanders. - Oh no, not because
She's merely lovely:- but we'll think no more
on't. -
Didst hear the act?
Lady, what act?
ALDABELLA.
Of the great Duke of Florence and his Senate,
Entitled against turtle doves in poesy.
Henceforth that useful bird is interdict,
As the mild emblem of true constancy.
There's a new word found; 't is pure Tuscan too;
Fazio's to fill the blank up, if it chime;
If not, Heaven help the rhymester.
FAZIO (apart.)
Enter ALDABELLA. She speaks, after a salutation on With what an airy and a sparkling grace
Oh nought-mere sound-mere air-Thou'rt married, Of playing the miser to another treasure,
And is thy bride a jewel of the first water?
I know thou wilt say, ay; 't is an old tale,
Thy fond lip-revel on a lady's beauties:
Methinks I've heard thee descant upon loveliness,
Till the full ears were drunken with sweet sounds.
But never let me see her, Fazio; never.
One not less precious than thy stately self.
Oh yes, my lord, oh yes; the tale did run
That thou and I did love: so ran the tale.
That thou and I should have been wed-the tale
Ran so, my lord. —Oh memory, memory, memory!
It is a bitter pleasure, but 't is pleasure.
Oh yes, my lord, he was a noble gentleman;
Thou know'st him by his title, Condé d'Orsoa;
My nearest kinsman, my good uncle : — I,
Knowing our passionate and fanciful nature,
To his sage counsels fetter'd my wild will.
Proud was he of me, deem'd me a fit mate
For highest princes; and his honest flatteries
So pamper'd me, the fatal duteousness
So grew upon me - Fazio, dost thou think
My colour wither'd since we parted? Gleam
Mine eyes as they were wont?- Or doth the outside
Still wear a lying smooth indifference,
While the unseen heart is haggard wan with woe?
Is 't possible? And didst thou love me, lady?
Though it be joy vain and unprofitable
As is the sunshine to a dead man's eyes,
Pleasureless from his impotence of pleasure;
Tell me and truly-
ALDABELLA.
My grave sir confessor,
On with thy hood and cowl.-So thou wouldst hear
Of pining days and discontented nights;
Ah me 's and doleful airs to my sad lute.
Fazio, they suffer most who utter least.
Heaven, what a babbling traitor is the tongue!
Would not the air freeze up such sinful sound?-
Oh no, thou heard'st it not. Ah me! and thou,
I know, wilt surfeit the coarse common ear
With the proud Aldabella's fall.. Betray me not;
Be charier of her shame than Aldabella.
And thou, thou snowy and unsociable virtue,
May'st lose no less a votaress from thy nunnery
Than the most beautiful proud Aldabella.
Had I been honest, 't were indeed to fall;
But now 'tis but a step down the declivity.
Bianca! but Bianca! - bear me up,
Bear me up, in the trammels of thy fondness
Bind thou my slippery soul. Wrong thee, Bianca ?
Nay, nay, that 's deep indeed; fathomless deep
In the black pit of infamy and sin:
I am not so weary yet of the upper air.
Wrong thee, Bianca? No, not for the earth;
Not for earth's brightest, not for Aldabella.
SCENE III.
Palace of Fazio.
FAZIO and BIANCA.
Dost thou love me, Bianca?
There's a question For a philosopher!-Why, I've answer'd it For two long years; and, oh, for many more, It will not stick upon my lips to answer thee.
Thou 'rt in the fashion, then. The court, Bianca,
The ladies of the court, find me a fair gentleman.;
Ay, and a dangerous wit too, that smites smartly.
And thou believest it all!
The lordly and frank spirits of the time,
Troop around thee with gay rhymes on thy beauties,
Tinkling their smooth and amorous flatteries,
Shalt thou be then a solemn infidel?
I shall not heed them; my poor beauty needs
Only one flatterer.
Ay, but they'll press on thee,
And force their music into thy deaf ears.
Think ye, ye should be coy, and calm, and cold?
Oh, no! I fear me a discourteous laugh
[Fazio falls on his knees to her. Might be their guerdon for their lavish lying.
My lord! my lord! 't is public here -no more-.
I'm staid for at my palace by the Arno.
Farewell, my lord, farewell!- Betray me not:-
But never let me see her, Fazio, never.
FAZIO (solus.)
Love me! to suffering love me! - why her love
Might draw a brazen statue from its pedestal,
And make its yellow veins leap up with life.
Fair Chastity, thou hast two juggling fiends
Caballing for thy jewel: one within,
And that's a mild and melting devil, Love;
Th' other without, and that's a fair rich gentleman,
Giraldi Fazio: they're knit in a league.
But if one trip upon your lip, or wind
Your fingers in his sportive hand, think ye
Ye could endure it?
Fazio, thou wrong'st me
With such dishonest questionings. My lord,
There's such an awe in virtue, it can make
The anger of a sleek smooth brow like mine
Strike the hot libertine to dust before me.
He'd dare to dally with a fire in his hand,
Kiss ragged briars with his unholy lips,
Ere with his rash assault attaint my honour.
But if ye see me by a noble lady,
Whispering as though she were my shrine, whereon
I lay my odorous incense, and her beauty
Grow riper, richer at my cherishing praise;
If she lean on me with a fond round arm,
If her eye drink the light from out mine eyes,
And if her lips drop sounds for my ear only;
Thou 'It arch thy moody brow, look at me gravely,
With a pale anger on thy silent cheek.
'Tis out of keeping, 't is not the court fashion-
We must forego this clinging and the clasping;
Be cold, and strange, and courteous to each other;
And say,
How doth my lord?" "How slept my
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Take heed; we are passionate; our milk of love
Doth turn to wormwood, and that's bitter drinking.
The fondest are most frenetic: where the fire
Burneth intensest, there the inmate pale
Doth dread the broad and beaconing conflagration.
If that ye cast us to the winds, the winds
Will give us their unruly restless nature;
We whirl and whirl; and where we settle, Fazio,
But he that ruleth the mad winds can know.
If ye do drive the love out of my soul,
That is its motion, being, and its life,
There'll be a conflict strange and horrible,
Among all fearful and ill-visaged fiends,
For the blank void; and their mad revel there
Will make me-oh, I know not what-hate thee!-
Oh, no! - I could not hate thee, Fazio:
Nay, nay, my Fazio, 't is not come to that;
Mine arms, mine arms, shall say the next "shall not;"
I'll never startle more thy peevish ears,
But I'll speak to thee with my positive lips.
[Kissing and clinging to him.
Oh, what a wild and wayward child am I!—
Like the hungry fool, that in his moody fit
Dash'd from his lips his last delicious morsel.
I'll see her once, Bianca, and but once;
And then a rich and breathing tale I'll tell her
Of our full happiness. If she be angel,
"T will be a gleam of Paradise to her,
And she 'll smile at it one of those soft smiles,
That makes the air seem sunny, blithe, and baliny.
If she be devil Nay, but that's too ugly;
The fancy doth rebel at it, and shrink
As from a serpent in a knot of flowers.
Devil and Aldabella! - Fie! - They sound
Like nightingales and screech-owls heard together
What! must I still have tears to kiss away? —
I will return- Good night!— It is but once.
See, thou'st the taste o' my lips now at our parting;
And when we meet again, if they be tainted,
Thou shalt oh no, thou shalt not, canst not hate me.
[Exeunt
SCENE IV. Palace of ALDABELLA.
ALDABELLA.
My dainty bird doth hover round the lure, And I must hood him with a skilful hand: Rich and renown'd, he must be in my train, Or Florence will turn rebel to my beauty.
Enter CLARA, FAZIO behind.
Oh, Clara, have ye been to the Ursulines? What says my cousin, the kind Lady Abbess?
She says, my lady, that to-morrow noon
Noviciates are admitted; but she wonders,
My Lady Abbess wonders, and I too
Wonder, my lady, what can make ye fancy
Those damp and dingy cloisters. Oh, my lady!
They'll make ye cut off all this fine dark hair
Why, all the signiors in the court would quarrel,
And cut each other's throats for a loose hair of it.
Ah me! what heeds it where I linger out The remnant of my dark and despised life? Clara, thou weariest me.
I saw their dress: it was so coarse and hard-grain'd,
I'm sure 't would fret your ladyship's soft skin
Like thorns and brambles; and besides, the make
A vine-dresser's wife at market looks more dainty.
Then my tears will not stain it. Oh, 't is rich enough
For lear and haggard sorrow. (Appearing to perceive
FAZIO, exit CLARA.) Oh, my lord!
You're timely come to take a long farewell.
Our convent gates are rude, and black, and close;
Our Ursuline veils of such a jealous woof,
There must be piercing in those curious eyes,
Would know if the skin beneath be swarth or snowy.
A convent for the brilliant Aldabella!
The mirror of all rival lovelinesses,
The harp to which all gay thoughts lightly dance,
Mew'd in the drowsy silence of a cloister!
Oh, what regards it, if a blind man lie
On a green lawn or on a steamy moor!
What heeds it to the dead and wither'd heart,
Whose faculty of rapture is grown sere,
Hath lost distinction between foul and fair,
Whether it house in gorgeous palaces,
Or 'mid wan graves and haggard signs of care!
Oh, there's a grief, so with the threads of being
Ravell'd and twined, it sickens every sense:
Then is the swinging and monotonous bell
Musical as the rich harp heard by moonlight;
Then are the limbs insensible if they rest
On the coarse pallet or the pulpy down.
What mean ye, lady?-thou bewilder'st me.
What grief so wanton and luxurious
Would choose the Lady Aldabella's bosom
To pillow on?
Nay, Fazio, gaze not on me so; my tongue
Can scarcely move for the fire within my cheeks-
It cankereth, it consumeth, untold love.
But if it burst its secret prison-house,
And venture on the broad and public air,
It leagueth with a busy fiend call'd Shame;
And they both dog their game, till misery
Fastens upon it with a viper's fang,
And rings its being with its venomous coil.
Misery and thee!-oh, 't is unnatural! —
Oh, yoke thee to that thing of darkness, misery!-
That Ethiop, that grim Moor!-it were to couple
The dove and kite within one loving leash.
It must not be; nay, ye must be divorced.
Ah no, my lord! we are too deeply pledged. Dost thou remember our old poet's* legend Over Hell gates
Oh, no! we must not part, we must not part.
I came to tell thee something: what, I know not.
I only know one word that should have been;
And that-Oh! if thy skin were seam'd with wrin-
kles,
If on thy cheek sate sallow hollowness,
If thy warm voice spake shrieking, harsh, and shrill
But to that breathing form, those ripe round lips,
Like a full parted cherry, those dark eyes,
Rich in such dewy languors- I'll not say it
Nay, nay, 't is on me now!— - Poison's at work!
Now listen to me, lady - We must love.
By the contagion of its own bright lustre,
The dull dead flux to so intense a brilliance,
Hope comes not here?" Where T will look like one of those rich purple clouds
Comes not, is hell; and what have I to hope?
What hast to hope?—Thou 'rt strangely beautiful
Wouldst thou leave flattery thy last ravishing sound Upon mine ears? — - "T is kind, 't is fatally kind.
Not all the night, not all the long, long night.
Not come to me! not send to me! not think on me!
Like an unrighteous and unburied ghost,
I wander up and down these long arcades.
Oh, in our old poor narrow home, if haply
He linger'd late abroad, domestic things
Close and familiar crowded all around me;
The ticking of the clock, the flapping motion
Of the green lattice, the grey curtains' folds,
The hangings of the bed myself had wrought,
Yea, e'en his black and iron crucibles,
Were to me as my friends. But here, oh here,
Where all is coldly, comfortlessly costly,
All strange, all new in uncouth gorgeousness,
Lofty and long, a wider space for misery —
E'en my own footsteps on these marble floors
Are unaccustom'd unfamiliar sounds. —
Oh, I am here so wearily miserable,
That I should welcome my apostate Fazio,
Though he were fresh from Aldabella's arms.
Her arms! - her viper coil! I had forsworn
That thought; lest he should come, and find me mad.
And so go back again, and I not know it.
Oh that I were a child to play with toys,
Fix my whole soul upon a cup and ball-
Oh any pitiful poor subterfuge,
A moment to distract my busy spirit
From its dark dalliance with that cursed image! I have tried all: all vainly- Now, but now I went in to my children. The first sounds They murmur'd in their evil-dreaming sleep Was a faint mimicry of the name of father. I could not kiss them, my lips were so hot. The very household slaves are leagued against me, And do beset me with their wicked floutings, "Comes my lord home to-night?" and when I say, "I know not," their coarse pity makes my heartstrings
The man with a brief name; 't was gaming, dicing,
Riotously drinking.-Oh it was not there;
"T was any where but there-or if it was,
Why like a sly and creeping adder sting me
With thy black tidings?-Nay, nay: good my friend;
Here's money for those harsh intemperate words.-
But he's not there; 't was some one of the gallants,
With dress and stature like my Fazio.
Thou wert mistaken :-no, no; 't was not Fazio.
It grieves me much, but, lady, 't is my fear Thou'lt find it but too true.
Hence! hence! Avaunt, With thy cold courteous face! Thou seest I'm wretched:
Doth it content thee? Gaze-gaze!-perchance
Ye would behold the bare and bleeding heart,
With all its throbs, its agonies.-Oh Fazio!
Oh Fazio! is her smile more sweet than mine?
Or her soul fonder?-Fazio, my lord Fazio!
Before the face of man mine own, mine only;
Before the face of Heaven Bianca's Fazio,
Not Aldabella's.-Ah, that I should live
To question it!-Now, henceforth all our joys,
Our delicate indearments, are all poison'd.
Ay! if he speak my name with his fond voice,
It will be with the same tone that to her
He murmur'd hers:-it will be, or 't will seem so.
If he embrace me, 't will be with those arms
In which he folded her: and if he kiss me,
He'll pause, and think which of the two is sweeter
Throb with the agony.-(Enter PIERO.)-Well, what Who sent thee thus to charter my free thoughts, of my lord?
Nay, tell it with thy lips, not with thy visage.
Thou raven, croak it out if it be evil :
If it be good, I'll fall and worship thee;
"T is the office and the ministry of gods
To speak good tidings to distracted spirits.
Last night my lord did feast
Speak it at onceWhere? where?-I'll wring it from thy lips.Where? where?
Lady, at the Marchesa Aldabella's.
Thou liest, false slave: 't was at the Ducal Palace, "T was at the arsenal with the officers,
T was with the old rich senator-him-him-him
And tell them where to shrink, and where to pause? Officious slave, away!-(Exit.)-Ha! what saidst
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