The Vatican
Alexander and Lucrezia
ALEXANDER
The day burns high. Thou hast not seen them—thou?
LUCREZIA
My brethren, sire? Nay, not since yesternight.
ALEXANDER
The night is newly dead. Since yestereven?
LUCREZIA
Nor then. I saw them when we parted here
Last.
ALEXANDER
I believe thou liest not. Girl, the day
Looks pale before thy glory. Brow, cheek, eye,
Lips, throat, and bosom, thou dost overshine
All womanhood man ever worshipped. Once
I held thy mother fairest born of all
That ever turned old Rome to heaven. Thou hast read
Her golden Horace?
LUCREZIA
Else were I cast out
From all their choir who serve the Muses.
ALEXANDER
Ay.
‘Fair mother’s fairer daughter,’ dost thou deem
That praise was ever merited as by thee?
I cannot.
LUCREZIA
I concern myself no whit
If so it were or were not.
ALEXANDER
Thou dost well.
Thou hast not seen, thou sayest, Francesco?
LUCREZIA
Nay—
Give me some reliquary to swear it on—
Some rosary—crucifix or amulet,
Sorcerous or sacred.
ALEXANDER
Never twins were born
More like than thou and he—nor lovelier: yet
No twins were ye.
LUCREZIA
What ails thy Holiness?
ALEXANDER
I am ill at ease: my heart is sick. Last night
No revel here was held, and yet the day
Strikes heavier on me wearier, body and soul,
Than though we had rioted out with raging mirth
The lifelong length of darkness.
LUCREZIA
Evil hours
Fret somewhiles all folk living; none sees why:
No child sleeps always all night long.
ALEXANDER
Wast thou
Wakeful? No trouble clung about thee? Nought
Made the air of night heavier with presage felt
As joy feels fear and withers? I am not
Afraid: methinks I am very fear itself.
Enter an Officer of the household
OFFICER
His holiness be gracious towards me.
ALEXANDER
Speak.
Thy face is death’s: let death upon thy lips
Live.
OFFICER
Sire, the humblest hireling knave in Rome—
A waterman that plies his craft all night—
Craves audience even of thee.
ALEXANDER
A Roman?
OFFICER
Nay.
Some outlander—some Greek—they call the knave
George the Slavonian.
ALEXANDER
They?
OFFICER
The fisherfolk
On Tiber.
ALEXANDER
Bid him in: bid God himself
Come in with doom upon me.
[Exit Officer.
Hear’st thou, child—
Daughter?
LUCREZIA
What horror hangs on thee?
ALEXANDER
Abide,
And thou shalt know as I know.
Enter Giorgio Schiavone
Speak. I say,
Speak. What thou art I know: and what I am
Thou knowest—and yet thou knowest not.
GIORGIO
Holiest sire,
Last night I kept my boat on Tiber—Sire,
The thing I saw was nothing of my deed—
It shook me out of sleep to see it—Lord,
Have mercy: look not so upon me.
ALEXANDER
Dog,
Speak, while thy tongue is thine.
GIORGIO
Two men came down
And peered along the water-side: and two
Came after—men whose eyes raked all the night,
Searching the shore—I lay beneath my boat—
Beside it on the darkling side—and saw.
Then came a horseman—Sire, his horse was white—
The moonshine made his mane like dull white fire—
And on his crupper heavily hung a corpse,
Arms held from swaying on this side, legs on that,
I know not which on either—but the men
Held fast that held: and hard on Tiber side
They swung the crupper towards the water—sharp
And swift as man may steer a horse—and caught
And slung their dead into the stream: and he
Drifted, and caught the moon across his face
That shone like life against it: and the chief
Till then sat silent as the moon at watch,
And then bade hurl stones on the drifting dead
And sink him out of sight; and seeing this done,
Rode thence, and they strode after.
ALEXANDER
Man, and thou—
Thou?
GIORGIO
Sire, I set my heart again to sleep:
I turned and slept under my boatside.
ALEXANDER
Man—
Dog—devil, if this be truth, and if my fear
Lie not—how hadst thou heart to hold thy peace?
How comes it that the warders of the shore
Knew not of thee, while yet the crime was hot,
What crime had made night hell?
GIORGIO
A thousand times
I have seen such sights, but never till this hour
Seen him who cared to hear of them.
ALEXANDER
Till now,
Never. He looks in God’s mute face and mine,
And says it. God be good to me! But God
Will not—or is not. Where is then thy dead,
Devil, called of God from hell to smite—to scourge—
Me?
GIORGIO
Sire, at hand I left him.
ALEXANDER
Stir not. Bid
Thy fellows bring my dead before me.
[Exit Officer.
Nay,
But mine it is not yet—it may not be
Mine—while it may not be, it is not. Child,
It shall not be thy brother. Pray no prayer.
Prayer never yet brought profit. Be not pale.
Fear strikes more deep into the fearful heart
The wound it heals not.
Enter Officers with the body of Francesco
What is he they bring?
O God! Thou livest! And my child is dead!
[Falls.
