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The Duchess of Padua
ACT II
SCENE
A state room in the Ducal Palace, hung with tapestries representing the Masque of Venus; a large door in the centre opens into a corridor of red marble, through which one can see a view of Padua; a large canopy is set (R.C.) with three thrones, one a little lower than the others; the ceiling is made of long gilded beams; furniture of the period, chairs covered with gilt leather, and buffets set with gold and silver plate, and chests painted with mythological scenes. A number of the courtiers is out on the corridor looking from it down into the street below; from the street comes the roar of a mob and cries of ‘Death to the Duke’: after a little interval enter the Duke very calmly; he is leaning on the arm of Guido Ferranti; with him enters also the Lord Cardinal; the mob still shouting.
Duke
No, my Lord Cardinal, I weary of her!
Why, she is worse than ugly, she is good.
Maffio [excitedly]
Your Grace, there are two thousand people there
Who every moment grow more clamorous.
Duke
Tut, man, they waste their strength upon their lungs!
People who shout so loud, my lords, do nothing;
The only men I fear are silent men.
[A yell from the people.]
You see, Lord Cardinal, how my people love me.
[Another yell.]
Go, Petrucci,
And tell the captain of the guard below
To clear the square. Do you not hear me, sir?
Do what I bid you.
[Exit Petrucci.]
Cardinal
I beseech your Grace
To listen to their grievances.
Duke [sitting on his throne]
Ay! the peaches
Are not so big this year as they were last.
I crave your pardon, my lord Cardinal,
I thought you spake of peaches.
[A cheer from the people.]
What is that?
Guido [rushes to the window]
The Duchess has gone forth into the square,
And stands between the people and the guard,
And will not let them shoot.
Duke
The devil take her!
Guido [still at the window]
And followed by a dozen of the citizens
Has come into the Palace.
Duke [starting up]
By Saint James,
Our Duchess waxes bold!
Bardi
Here comes the Duchess.
Duke
Shut that door there; this morning air is cold.
[They close the door on the corridor.]
[Enter the Duchess followed by a crowd of meanly dressed Citizens.]
Duchess [flinging herself upon her knees]
I do beseech your Grace to give us audience.
Duke
What are these grievances?
Duchess
Alas, my Lord,
Such common things as neither you nor I,
Nor any of these noble gentlemen,
Have ever need at all to think about;
They say the bread, the very bread they eat,
Is made of sorry chaff.
First Citizen
Ay! so it is,
Nothing but chaff.
Duke
And very good food too,
I give it to my horses.
Duchess [restraining herself]
They say the water,
Set in the public cisterns for their use,
[Has, through the breaking of the aqueduct,]
To stagnant pools and muddy puddles turned.
Duke
They should drink wine; water is quite unwholesome.
Second Citizen
Alack, your Grace, the taxes which the customs
Take at the city gate are grown so high
We cannot buy wine.
Duke
Then you should bless the taxes
Which make you temperate.
Duchess
Think, while we sit
In gorgeous pomp and state, gaunt poverty
Creeps through their sunless lanes, and with sharp knives
Cuts the warm throats of children stealthily
And no word said.
Third Citizen
Ay! marry, that is true,
My little son died yesternight from hunger;
He was but six years old; I am so poor,
I cannot bury him.
Duke
If you are poor,
Are you not blessed in that? Why, poverty
Is one of the Christian virtues,
[Turns to the Cardinal.]
Is it not?
I know, Lord Cardinal, you have great revenues,
Rich abbey-lands, and tithes, and large estates
For preaching voluntary poverty.
Duchess
Nay but, my lord the Duke, be generous;
While we sit here within a noble house
[With shaded porticoes against the sun,
And walls and roofs to keep the winter out],
There are many citizens of Padua
Who in vile tenements live so full of holes,
That the chill rain, the snow, and the rude blast,
Are tenants also with them; others sleep
Under the arches of the public bridges
All through the autumn nights, till the wet mist
Stiffens their limbs, and fevers come, and so —
Duke
And so they go to Abraham’s bosom, Madam.
They should thank me for sending them to Heaven,
If they are wretched here. [To the Cardinal.]
Is it not said
Somewhere in Holy Writ, that every man
Should be contented with that state of life
God calls him to? Why should I change their state,
Or meddle with an all-wise providence,
Which has apportioned that some men should starve,
And others surfeit? I did not make the world.
First Citizen
He hath a hard heart.
Second Citizen
Nay, be silent, neighbour;
I think the Cardinal will speak for us.
Cardinal
True, it is Christian to bear misery,
Yet it is Christian also to be kind,
And there seem many evils in this town,
Which in your wisdom might your Grace reform.
First Citizen
What is that word reform? What does it mean?
Second Citizen
Marry, it means leaving things as they are; I like it not.
Duke
Reform Lord Cardinal, did you say reform?
There is a man in Germany called Luther,
Who would reform the Holy Catholic Church.
Have you not made him heretic, and uttered
Anathema, maranatha, against him?
Cardinal [rising from his seat]
He would have led the sheep out of the fold,
We do but ask of you to feed the sheep.
Duke
When I have shorn their fleeces I may feed them.
As for these rebels – [Duchess entreats him.]
First Citizen
That is a kind word,
He means to give us something.
Second Citizen
Is that so?
Duke
These ragged knaves who come before us here,
With mouths chock-full of treason.
Third Citizen
Good my Lord,
Fill up our mouths with bread; we’ll hold our tongues.
Duke
Ye shall hold your tongues, whether you starve or not.
My lords, this age is so familiar grown,
That the low peasant hardly doffs his hat,
Unless you beat him; and the raw mechanic
Elbows the noble in the public streets.
[To the Citizens.]
Still as our gentle Duchess has so prayed us,
And to refuse so beautiful a beggar
Were to lack both courtesy and love,
Touching your grievances, I promise this —
First Citizen
Marry, he will lighten the taxes!
Second Citizen
Or a dole of bread, think you, for each man?
Duke
That, on next Sunday, the Lord Cardinal
Shall, after Holy Mass, preach you a sermon
Upon the Beauty of Obedience.
[Citizens murmur.]
First Citizen
I’ faith, that will not fill our stomachs!
Second Citizen
A sermon is but a sorry sauce, when
You have nothing to eat with it.
Duchess
Poor people,
You see I have no power with the Duke,
But if you go into the court without,
My almoner shall from my private purse,
Divide a hundred ducats ’mongst you all.
First Citizen
God save the Duchess, say I.
Second Citizen
God save her.
Duchess
And every Monday morn shall bread be set
For those who lack it.
[Citizens applaud and go out.]
First Citizen [going out]
Why, God save the Duchess again!
Duke [calling him back]
Come hither, fellow! what is your name?
First Citizen
Dominick, sir.
Duke
A good name! Why were you called Dominick?
First Citizen [scratching his head]
Marry, because I was born on St. George’s day.
Duke
A good reason! here is a ducat for you!
Will you not cry for me God save the Duke?
First Citizen [feebly]
God save the Duke.
Duke
Nay! louder, fellow, louder.
First Citizen [a little louder]
God save the Duke!
Duke
More lustily, fellow, put more heart in it!
Here is another ducat for you.
First Citizen [enthusiastically]
God save the Duke!
Duke [mockingly]
Why, gentlemen, this simple fellow’s love
Touches me much. [To the Citizen, harshly.]
Go! [Exit Citizen, bowing.]
This is the way, my lords,
You can buy popularity nowadays.
Oh, we are nothing if not democratic!
[To the Duchess.]
Well, Madam,
You spread rebellion ’midst our citizens.
Duchess
My Lord, the poor have rights you cannot touch,
The right to pity, and the right to mercy.
Duke
So, so, you argue with me? This is she,
The gentle Duchess for whose hand I yielded
Three of the fairest towns in Italy,
Pisa, and Genoa, and Orvieto.
Duchess
Promised, my Lord, not yielded: in that matter
Brake you your word as ever.
Duke
You wrong us, Madam,
There were state reasons.
Duchess
What state reasons are there
For breaking holy promises to a state?
Duke
There are wild boars at Pisa in a forest
Close to the city: when I promised Pisa
Unto your noble and most trusting father,
I had forgotten there was hunting there.
At Genoa they say,
Indeed I doubt them not, that the red mullet
Runs larger in the harbour of that town
Than anywhere in Italy.
[Turning to one of the Court.]
You, my lord,
Whose gluttonous appetite is your only god,
Could satisfy our Duchess on that point.
Duchess
And Orvieto?
Duke [yawning]
I cannot now recall
Why I did not surrender Orvieto
According to the word of my contract.
Maybe it was because I did not choose.
[Goes over to the Duchess.]
Why look you, Madam, you are here alone;
’Tis many a dusty league to your grey France,
And even there your father barely keeps
A hundred ragged squires for his Court.
What hope have you, I say? Which of these lords
And noble gentlemen of Padua
Stands by your side.
Duchess
There is not one.
[Guido starts, but restrains himself.]
Duke
Nor shall be,
While I am Duke in Padua: listen, Madam,
Being mine own, you shall do as I will,
And if it be my will you keep the house,
Why then, this palace shall your prison be;
And if it be my will you walk abroad,
Why, you shall take the air from morn to night.
Duchess
Sir, by what right – ?
Duke
Madam, my second Duchess
Asked the same question once: her monument
Lies in the chapel of Bartholomew,
Wrought in red marble; very beautiful.
Guido, your arm. Come, gentlemen, let us go
And spur our falcons for the mid-day chase.
Bethink you, Madam, you are here alone.
[Exit the Duke leaning on Guido, with his Court.]
Duchess [looking after them]
The Duke said rightly that I was alone;
Deserted, and dishonoured, and defamed,
Stood ever woman so alone indeed?
Men when they woo us call us pretty children,
Tell us we have not wit to make our lives,
And so they mar them for us. Did I say woo?
We are their chattels, and their common slaves,
Less dear than the poor hound that licks their hand,
Less fondled than the hawk upon their wrist.
Woo, did I say? bought rather, sold and bartered,
Our very bodies being merchandise.
I know it is the general lot of women,
Each miserably mated to some man
Wrecks her own life upon his selfishness:
That it is general makes it not less bitter.
I think I never heard a woman laugh,
Laugh for pure merriment, except one woman,
That was at night time, in the public streets.
Poor soul, she walked with painted lips, and wore
The mask of pleasure: I would not laugh like her;
No, death were better.
[Enter Guido behind unobserved; the Duchess flings herself down before a picture of the Madonna.]
O Mary mother, with your sweet pale face
Bending between the little angel heads
That hover round you, have you no help for me?
Mother of God, have you no help for me?
Guido
I can endure no longer.
This is my love, and I will speak to her.
Lady, am I a stranger to your prayers?
Duchess [rising]
None but the wretched needs my prayers, my lord.
Guido
Then must I need them, lady.
Duchess
How is that?
Does not the Duke show thee sufficient honour?
Guido
Your Grace, I lack no favours from the Duke,
Whom my soul loathes as I loathe wickedness,
But come to proffer on my bended knees,
My loyal service to thee unto death.
Duchess
Alas! I am so fallen in estate
I can but give thee a poor meed of thanks.
Guido [seizing her hand]
Hast thou no love to give me?
[The Duchess starts, and Guido falls at her feet.]
O dear saint,
If I have been too daring, pardon me!
Thy beauty sets my boyish blood aflame,
And, when my reverent lips touch thy white hand,
Each little nerve with such wild passion thrills
That there is nothing which I would not do
To gain thy love. [Leaps up.]
Bid me reach forth and pluck
Perilous honour from the lion’s jaws,
And I will wrestle with the Nemean beast
On the bare desert! Fling to the cave of War
A gaud, a ribbon, a dead flower, something
That once has touched thee, and I’ll bring it back
Though all the hosts of Christendom were there,
Inviolate again! ay, more than this,
Set me to scale the pallid white-faced cliffs
Of mighty England, and from that arrogant shield
Will I raze out the lilies of your France
Which England, that sea-lion of the sea,
Hath taken from her!
O dear Beatrice,
Drive me not from thy presence! without thee
The heavy minutes crawl with feet of lead,
But, while I look upon thy loveliness,
The hours fly like winged Mercuries
And leave existence golden.
Duchess
I did not think
I should be ever loved: do you indeed
Love me so much as now you say you do?
Guido
Ask of the sea-bird if it loves the sea,
Ask of the roses if they love the rain,
Ask of the little lark, that will not sing
Till day break, if it loves to see the day: —
And yet, these are but empty images,
Mere shadows of my love, which is a fire
So great that all the waters of the main
Can not avail to quench it. Will you not speak?
Duchess
I hardly know what I should say to you.
Guido
Will you not say you love me?
Duchess
Is that my lesson?
Must I say all at once? ’Twere a good lesson
If I did love you, sir; but, if I do not,
What shall I say then?
Guido
If you do not love me,
Say, none the less, you do, for on your tongue
Falsehood for very shame would turn to truth.
Duchess
What if I do not speak at all? They say
Lovers are happiest when they are in doubt
Guido
Nay, doubt would kill me, and if I must die,
Why, let me die for joy and not for doubt.
Oh, tell me may I stay, or must I go?
Duchess
I would not have you either stay or go;
For if you stay you steal my love from me,
And if you go you take my love away.
Guido, though all the morning stars could sing
They could not tell the measure of my love.
I love you, Guido.
Guido [stretching out his hands]
Oh, do not cease at all;
I thought the nightingale sang but at night;
Or if thou needst must cease, then let my lips
Touch the sweet lips that can such music make.
Duchess
To touch my lips is not to touch my heart.
Guido
Do you close that against me?
Duchess
Alas! my lord,
I have it not: the first day that I saw you
I let you take my heart away from me;
Unwilling thief, that without meaning it
Did break into my fenced treasury
And filch my jewel from it! O strange theft,
Which made you richer though you knew it not,
And left me poorer, and yet glad of it!
Guido [clasping her in his arms]
O love, love, love! Nay, sweet, lift up your head,
Let me unlock those little scarlet doors
That shut in music, let me dive for coral
In your red lips, and I’ll bear back a prize
Richer than all the gold the Gryphon guards
In rude Armenia.
Duchess
You are my lord,
And what I have is yours, and what I have not
Your fancy lends me, like a prodigal
Spending its wealth on what is nothing worth.
[Kisses him.]
Guido
Methinks I am bold to look upon you thus:
The gentle violet hides beneath its leaf
And is afraid to look at the great sun
For fear of too much splendour, but my eyes,
O daring eyes! are grown so venturous
That like fixed stars they stand, gazing at you,
And surfeit sense with beauty.
Duchess
Dear love, I would
You could look upon me ever, for your eyes
Are polished mirrors, and when I peer
Into those mirrors I can see myself,
And so I know my image lives in you.
Guido [taking her in his arms]
Stand still, thou hurrying orb in the high heavens,
And make this hour immortal! [A pause.]
Duchess
Sit down here,
A little lower than me: yes, just so, sweet,
That I may run my fingers through your hair,
And see your face turn upwards like a flower
To meet my kiss.
Have you not sometimes noted,
When we unlock some long-disuséd room
With heavy dust and soiling mildew filled,
Where never foot of man has come for years,
And from the windows take the rusty bar,
And fling the broken shutters to the air,
And let the bright sun in, how the good sun
Turns every grimy particle of dust
Into a little thing of dancing gold?
Guido, my heart is that long-empty room,
But you have let love in, and with its gold
Gilded all life. Do you not think that love
Fills up the sum of life?
Guido
Ay! without love
Life is no better than the unhewn stone
Which in the quarry lies, before the sculptor
Has set the God within it. Without love
Life is as silent as the common reeds
That through the marshes or by rivers grow,
And have no music in them.
Duchess
Yet out of these
The singer, who is Love, will make a pipe
And from them he draws music; so I think
Love will bring music out of any life.
Is that not true?
Guido
Sweet, women make it true.
There are men who paint pictures, and carve statues,
Paul of Verona and the dyer’s son,
Or their great rival, who, by the sea at Venice,
Has set God’s little maid upon the stair,
White as her own white lily, and as tall,
Or Raphael, whose Madonnas are divine
Because they are mothers merely; yet I think
Women are the best artists of the world,
For they can take the common lives of men
Soiled with the money-getting of our age,
And with love make them beautiful.
Duchess
Ah, dear,
I wish that you and I were very poor;
The poor, who love each other, are so rich.
Guido
Tell me again you love me, Beatrice.
Duchess [fingering his collar]
How well this collar lies about your throat.
[Lord Moranzone looks through the door from the corridor outside.]
Guido
Nay, tell me that you love me.
Duchess
I remember,
That when I was a child in my dear France,
Being at Court at Fontainebleau, the King
Wore such a collar.
Guido
Will you not say you love me?
Duchess [smiling]
He was a very royal man, King Francis,
Yet he was not royal as you are.
Why need I tell you, Guido, that I love you?
[Takes his head in her hands and turns his face up to her.]
Do you not know that I am yours for ever,
Body and soul?
[Kisses him, and then suddenly catches sight of Moranzone and leaps up.]
Oh, what is that? [Moranzone disappears.]
Guido
What, love?
Duchess
Methought I saw a face with eyes of flame
Look at us through the doorway.
Guido
Nay, ’twas nothing:
The passing shadow of the man on guard.
[The Duchess still stands looking at the window.]
’Twas nothing, sweet.
Duchess
Ay! what can harm us now,
Who are in Love’s hand? I do not think I’d care
Though the vile world should with its lackey Slander
Trample and tread upon my life; why should I?
They say the common field-flowers of the field
Have sweeter scent when they are trodden on
Than when they bloom alone, and that some herbs
Which have no perfume, on being bruiséd die
With all Arabia round them; so it is
With the young lives this dull world seeks to crush,
It does but bring the sweetness out of them,
And makes them lovelier often. And besides,
While we have love we have the best of life:
Is it not so?
Guido
Dear, shall we play or sing?
I think that I could sing now.
Duchess
Do not speak,
For there are times when all existences
Seem narrowed to one single ecstasy,
And Passion sets a seal upon the lips.
Guido
Oh, with mine own lips let me break that seal!
You love me, Beatrice?
Duchess
Ay! is it not strange
I should so love mine enemy?
Guido
Who is he?
Duchess
Why, you: that with your shaft did pierce my heart!
Poor heart, that lived its little lonely life
Until it met your arrow.
Guido
Ah, dear love,
I am so wounded by that bolt myself
That with untended wounds I lie a-dying,
Unless you cure me, dear Physician.
Duchess
I would not have you cured; for I am sick
With the same malady.
Guido
Oh, how I love you!
See, I must steal the cuckoo’s voice, and tell
The one tale over.
Duchess
Tell no other tale!
For, if that is the little cuckoo’s song,
The nightingale is hoarse, and the loud lark
Has lost its music.
Guido
Kiss me, Beatrice!
[She takes his face in her hands and bends down and kisses him; a loud knocking then comes at the door, and Guido leaps up; enter a Servant.]
Servant
A package for you, sir.
Guido [carelessly]
Ah! give it to me.
[Servant hands package wrapped in vermilion silk, and exit; as Guido is about to open it the Duchess comes up behind, and in sport takes it from him.]
Duchess [laughing]
Now I will wager it is from some girl
Who would have you wear her favour; I am so jealous
I will not give up the least part in you,
But like a miser keep you to myself,
And spoil you perhaps in keeping.
Guido
It is nothing.
Duchess
Nay, it is from some girl.
Guido
You know ’tis not.
Duchess [turns her back and opens it]
Now, traitor, tell me what does this sign mean,
A dagger with two leopards wrought in steel?
Guido [taking it from her]
O God!
Duchess
I’ll from the window look, and try
If I can’t see the porter’s livery
Who left it at the gate! I will not rest
Till I have learned your secret.
[Runs laughing into the corridor.]
Guido
Oh, horrible!
Had I so soon forgot my father’s death,
Did I so soon let love into my heart,
And must I banish love, and let in murder
That beats and clamours at the outer gate?
Ay, that I must! Have I not sworn an oath?
Yet not to-night; nay, it must be to-night.
Farewell then all the joy and light of life,
All dear recorded memories, farewell,
Farewell all love! Could I with bloody hands
Fondle and paddle with her innocent hands?
Could I with lips fresh from this butchery
Play with her lips? Could I with murderous eyes
Look in those violet eyes, whose purity
Would strike men blind, and make each eyeball reel
In night perpetual? No, murder has set
A barrier between us far too high
For us to kiss across it.
Duchess
Guido!
Guido
Beatrice,
You must forget that name, and banish me
Out of your life for ever.
Duchess [going towards him]
O dear love!
Guido [stepping back]
There lies a barrier between us two
We dare not pass.
Duchess
I dare do anything
So that you are beside me.
Guido
Ah! There it is,
I cannot be beside you, cannot breathe
The air you breathe; I cannot any more
Stand face to face with beauty, which unnerves
My shaking heart, and makes my desperate hand
Fail of its purpose. Let me go hence, I pray;
Forget you ever looked upon me.
Duchess
What!
With your hot kisses fresh upon my lips
Forget the vows of love you made to me?
Guido
I take them back.
Duchess
Alas, you cannot, Guido,
For they are part of nature now; the air
Is tremulous with their music, and outside
The little birds sing sweeter for those vows.
Guido
There lies a barrier between us now,
Which then I knew not, or I had forgot.
Duchess
There is no barrier, Guido; why, I will go
In poor attire, and will follow you
Over the world.
Guido [wildly]
The world’s not wide enough
To hold us two! Farewell, farewell for ever.
Duchess [calm, and controlling her passion]
Why did you come into my life at all, then,
Or in the desolate garden of my heart
Sow that white flower of love – ?
Guido
O Beatrice!
Duchess
Which now you would dig up, uproot, tear out,
Though each small fibre doth so hold my heart
That if you break one, my heart breaks with it?
Why did you come into my life? Why open
The secret wells of love I had sealed up?
Why did you open them – ?
Guido
O God!
Duchess [clenching her hand]
And let
The floodgates of my passion swell and burst
Till, like the wave when rivers overflow
That sweeps the forest and the farm away,
Love in the splendid avalanche of its might
Swept my life with it? Must I drop by drop
Gather these waters back and seal them up?
Alas! Each drop will be a tear, and so
Will with its saltness make life very bitter.
Guido
I pray you speak no more, for I must go
Forth from your life and love, and make a way
On which you cannot follow.
Duchess
I have heard
That sailors dying of thirst upon a raft,
Poor castaways upon a lonely sea,
Dream of green fields and pleasant water-courses,
And then wake up with red thirst in their throats,
And die more miserably because sleep
Has cheated them: so they die cursing sleep
For having sent them dreams: I will not curse you
Though I am cast away upon the sea
Which men call Desolation.
Guido
