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Title: The Wonder-Working Magician
Author: Calderón de la Barca, Pedro, 1600-1681
Language: English
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THE WONDER-WORKING MAGICIAN
By Pedro Calderon de la Barca
CALDERON'S DRAMAS.
Now First Translated Fully From The Spanish In The Metre
Of The Original. By Denis Florence Mac-Carthy.
London: Henry S. King & Co.,
65 Cornhill, And 12, Paternoster Row.
1873.
INTRODUCTION.
Two of the dramas contained in this volume are the most celebrated of
all Calderon's writings. The first, "La Vida es Sueno", has been
translated into many languages and performed with success on almost
every stage in Europe but that of England. So late as the winter of
1866-7, in a Russian version, it drew crowded houses to the great
theatre of Moscow; while a few years earlier, as if to give a signal
proof of the reality of its title, and that Life was indeed a Dream,
the Queen of Sweden expired in the theatre of Stockholm during the
performance of "La Vida es Sueno". In England the play has been much
studied for its literary value and the exceeding beauty and lyrical
sweetness of some passages; but with the exception of a version by
John Oxenford published in "The Monthly Magazine" for 1842, which
being in blank verse does not represent the form of the original, no
complete translation into English has been attempted. Some scenes
translated with considerable elegance in the metre of the original
were published by Archbishop Trench in 1856; but these comprised only
a portion of the graver division of the drama. The present version
of the entire play has been made with the advantages which the
author's long experience in the study and interpretation of Calderon
has enabled him to apply to this master-piece of the great Spanish
poet. All the forms of verse have been preserved; while the
closeness of the translation may be inferred from the fact, that not
only the whole play but every speech and fragment of a speech are
represented in English in the exact number of lines of the original,
without the sacrifice, it is to be hoped, of one important idea.
A note by Hartzenbusch in the last edition of the drama published at
Madrid (1872), tells that "La Vida es Sueno", is founded on a story
which turns out to be substantially the same as that with which
English students are familiar as the foundation of the famous
Induction to the "Taming of the Shrew". Calderon found it however in
a different work from that in which Shakespeare met with it, or
rather his predecessor, the anonymous author of "The Taming of a
Shrew", whose work supplied to Shakespeare the materials of his own
comedy.
On this subject Malone thus writes. "The circumstance on which the
Induction to the anonymous play, as well as to the present Comedy
[Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew"], is founded, is related (as
Langbaine has observed) by Heuterus, "Rerum Burgund." lib. iv. The
earliest English original of this story in prose that I have met with
is the following, which is found in Goulart's "Admirable and
Memorable Histories", translated by E. Grimstone, quarto, 1607; but
this tale (which Goulart translated from Heuterus) had undoubtedly
appeared in English, in some other shape, before 1594:
"Philip called the good Duke of Burgundy, in the memory of our
ancestors, being at Bruxelles with his Court, and walking one night
after supper through the streets, accompanied by some of his
favourites, he found lying upon the stones a certaine artisan that
was very dronke, and that slept soundly. It pleased the prince in
this artisan to make trial of the vanity of our life, whereof he had
before discoursed with his familiar friends. He therefore caused
this sleeper to be taken up, and carried into his palace; he commands
him to be layed in one of the richest beds; a riche night cap to be
given him; his foule shirt to be taken off, and to have another put
on him of fine holland. When as this dronkard had digested his wine,
and began to awake, behold there comes about his bed Pages and
Groomes of the Duke's Chamber, who drawe the curteines, make many
courtesies, and being bare-headed, aske him if it please him to rise,
and what apparell it would please him to put on that day. They bring
him rich apparell. This new Monsieur amazed at such courtesie, and
doubting whether he dreamt or waked, suffered himselfe to be drest,
and led out of the chamber. There came noblemen which saluted him
with all honour, and conduct him to the Masse, where with great
ceremonie they give him the booke of the Gospell, and the Pixe to
kisse, as they did usually to the Duke. From the Masse they bring
him back unto the pallace; he washes his hands, and sittes down at
the table well furnished. After dinner, the Great Chamberlain
commands cards to be brought with a great summe of money. This Duke
in imagination playes with the chief of the Court. Then they carry
him to walke in the gardein, and to hunt the hare, and to hawke.
They bring him back into the pallace, where he sups in state.
Candles being light the musitions begin to play; and the tables taken
away, the gentlemen and gentlewomen fell to dancing. Then they
played a pleasant comedie, after which followed a Banket, whereat
they had presently store of Ipocras and pretious wine, with all sorts
of confitures, to this prince of the new impression; so as he was
dronke, and fell soundlie asleepe. Hereupon the Duke commanded that
he should be disrobed of all his riche attire. He was put into his
old ragges, and carried into the same place, where he had been found
the night before; where he spent that night. Being awake in the
morning, he began to remember what had happened before; he knewe not
whether it were true indeede, or a dream that had troubled his
braine. But in the end, after many discourses, he concludes that ALL
WAS BUT A DREAME that had happened unto him; and so entertained his
wife, his children, and his neighbours, without any other
apprehension."
It is curious to find that the same anecdote which formed the
Induction to the original "Taming of a Shrew", and which, from a
comic point of view, Shakespeare so wonderfully developed in his own
comedy, Calderon invested with such solemn and sublime dignity in "La
Vida es Sueno". He found it, as Senor Hartzenbusch points out in the
edition of 1872 already quoted, in the very amusing "Viage
Entretenido" of Augustin de Rojas, which was first published in 1603.
Hartzenbusch refers to the modern edition of Rojas, Madrid, 1793,
tomo I, pp. 261, 262, 263, but in a copy of the Lerida edition of
1615, in my own possession, I find the anecdote at folios 118, 119,
120. There are some slight differences between the version of Rojas
and that of Goulart, but the incidents and the persons are the same.
The conclusion to which the artizan arrived at, in the version of
Goulart, that all had been a dream, is expressed more strongly by the
Duke himself in the story as told by Rojas.
"Y dijo entonces el Duque: 'veis aqui, amigos, "Lo que es el Mundo:
Todo es un Sueno", pues esto verdaderamente ha pasado por este, como
habeis visto, y le parece que lo ha sonado.'"--
The story in all probability came originally from the East. Mr. Lane
in his translation of the Thousand and One Nights gives a very
interesting narrative which he believes to be founded on an
historical fact in which Haroun Al Raschid plays the part of the good
Duke of Burgundy, and Abu-l-Hasan the original of Christopher Sly.
The gravity of the treatment and certain incidents in this Oriental
story recall more strongly Calderon's drama than the Induction to the
"Taming of the Shrew". "La Vida es Sueno" was first published either
at the end of 1635 or beginning of 1636.
The "Aprobacion" for its publication along with eleven other dramas
(not nine as Archbishop Trench has stated), was signed on the 6th of
November in the former year by the official licenser, Juan Bautista
de Sossa. The volume was edited by the poet's brother, Don Joseph
Calderon. So scarce has this first authorised collection of any of
Calderon's dramas become, that a Spanish writer Don Vicente Garcia de
la Huerta, in his "Teatro Espanol" (Parte Segunda, tomo 30), denies
the existence of this volume of 1635, and states that it did not
appear until 1640. As if to corroborate this view, Barrera in his
"Catalogo del Teatro antiguo Espanol" gives the date 1640 to the
"Primera parte de comedias de Calderon" edited by his brother Joseph.
There can be no doubt, however, that the volume appeared in 1635 or
1636 as stated. In 1637 Don Joseph Calderon published the "Second
Part" of his brother's dramas containing like the former volume
twelve plays.* In his dedication of this volume to D. Rodrigo de
Mendoza, Joseph Calderon expressly alludes to the First Part of his
brother's comedies which he had "printed." "En la primera Parte,
Excellentissimo Senor, de las comedias que imprimi de Don Pedro
Calderon de La Barca, mi hermano," etc. This of course settles the
fact of the prior publication of the first Part. It is singular,
however, to find that the most famous of all Calderon's dramas should
have been frequently ascribed to Lope de Vega. So late as 1857 it is
given in an Italian version by Giovanni La Cecilia, under the title
of "La Vita e un Sogno", as a drama of Lope de Vega, with the date
1628. This of course is a mistake, but Senor Hartzenbusch, who makes
no allusion to this circumstance, admits that two dramas of Lope de
Vega, which it is presumed preceded the composition of Calderon's
play turn on very nearly the same incidents as those of "La Vida es
Sueno". These are "Lo que ha de ser", and "Barlan y Josafa". He
gives a passage from each of these dramas which seem to be the germ
of the fine lament of Sigismund, which the reader will find
translated in the present volume.
[footnote] *In the library of the British Museum there is a fine copy
of this "Segunda Parte de Comedias de Don Pedro Calderon de la Barca"
Madrid, 1637. Mr. Ticknor mentions (1863) that he too had a copy of
this interesting volume.
Senor Hartzenbusch, in the edition of Calderon's "La Vida es Sueno",
already referred to (Madrid, 1872), prints the passages from Lope de
Vega's two dramas, but in neither of them, he justly remarks, can we
find anything that at all corresponds to this "grandioso caracter de
Segismundo."
The second drama in this volume, "The Wonderful Magician", is perhaps
better known to poetical students in England than even the first,
from the spirited fragment Shelley has left us in his "Scenes from
Calderon." The preoccupation of a subject by a great master throws
immense difficulties in the way of any one who ventures to follow in
the same path: but as Shelley allowed himself great licence in his
versification, and either from carelessness or an imperfect knowledge
of Spanish is occasionally unfaithful to the meaning of his author,
it may be hoped in my own version that strict fidelity both as to the
form as well as substance of the original may be some compensation
for the absence of those higher poetical harmonies to which many of
my readers will have been accustomed.
"El Magico Prodigioso" appeared for the first time in the same volume
as "La Vida es Sueno", prepared for publication in 1635 by Don Joseph
Calderon. The translation is comprised in the same number of lines
as the original, and all the preceding remarks on "Life is a Dream",
whether in reference to the period of the first publication of the
drama in Spain, or the principles I kept in view while attempting
this version may be applied to it. As in the Case of "Life is a
Dream", "The Wonderful Magician" has previously been translated
entire by an English writer, ("Justina", by J.H. 1848); but as
Archbishop Trench truly observes, "the writer did not possess that
command of the resources of the English language, which none more
than Calderon requires."
The Legend on which Calderon founded "El Magico Prodigioso" will be
found in Surius, "De probatis Sanctorum historiis", t. V. (Col. Agr.
1574), p. 351: "Vita et Martyrium SS. Cypriani et Justinae, autore
Simeone Metaphraste", and in Chapter cxlii, of the "Legenda Aurea" of
Jacobus de Voragine "De Sancta Justina virgine".
The martyrdom of the Saints took place in the year 290, and their
festival is celebrated by the Church on the 26th of September.
Mr. Ticknor in his History of Spanish Literature, 1863, volume ii. p.
369, says that the Wonder-working Magician is founded on "the same
legend on which Milman has founded his 'Martyr of Antioch.'" This is
a mistake of the learned writer. "The Martyr of Antioch" is founded
not on the history of St. Justina but of Saint Margaret, as Milman
himself expressly states. Chapter xciii., "De Sancta Margareta", in
the "Legenda Aurea" of Jacobus de Voragine contains her story.
The third translation in this volume is that of "The Purgatory of St.
Patrick". This, though perhaps not so famous as the two preceding
dramas, is intended to be given by Don P. De la Escosura, in a
selection of Calderon's finest "comedias", now being edited by him
for the Spanish Academy, as the representative piece of its
class--namely, the mystical drama founded on the lives of Saints. Mr.
Ticknor prefers it to the more celebrated "Devotion of the Cross,"
and says that it "is commonly ranked among the best religious plays
of the Spanish theatre in the seventeenth century."
In all that relates to the famous cave known through the middle ages
as the "Purgatory of Saint Patrick", as well as the Story of Luis
Enius--the Owain Miles of Ancient English poetry--Calderon was
entirely indebted to the little volume published at Madrid, in 1627,
by Juan Perez de Montalvan, entitled "Vida y Purgatorio de San
Patricio". This singular work met with immense success. It went
through innumerable editions, and continues to be reprinted in Spain
as a chap-book, down to the present day. I have the fifth impression
"improved and enlarged by the author himself," Madrid, 1628, the year
after its first appearance: also a later edition, Madrid, 1664. As
early as 1637 a French translation appeared at Brussels by "F. A. S.
Chartreux, a Bruxelles." In 1642 a second French translation was
published at Troyes, by "R. P. Francois Bouillon, de l'Ordre de S.
Francois, et Bachelier de Theologie." Mr. Thomas Wright in his
"Essay on St. Patrick's Purgatory," London, 1844, makes the singular
mistake of supposing that Bouillon's "Histoire de la Vie et
Purgatoire de S. Patrice" was founded on the drama of Calderon, it
being simply a translation of Montalvan's "Vida y Purgatorio," from
which, like itself, Calderon's play was derived. Among other
translations of Montalvan's work may be mentioned one in Dutch
(Brussels, 1668) and one in Portuguese (Lisbon, 1738). It was also
translated into German and Italian, but I find no mention of an
English version. For this reason I have thought that a few extracts
might be interesting, as showing how closely Calderon adhered even to
the language of his predecessor.
In all that relates to the Purgatory, Montalvan's work is itself
chiefly compiled from the "Florilegium Insulae Sanctorum, seu vitae
et Actae sanctorum Hiberniae," Paris, 1624, fol. This work, which
has now become scarce, was written by Thomas Messingham an Irish
priest, the Superior of the Irish Seminary in Paris. No complete
English version appears to have been made of it, but a small tract in
English containing everything in the original work that referred to
St. Patrick's Purgatory was published at Paris in 1718. As this
tract is perhaps more scarce than even the Florilegium itself, the
account of the Purgatory as given by Messingham from the MS. of Henry
of Saltrey is reprinted in the notes to this drama in the quaint
language of the anonymous translator. Of this tract, "printed at
Paris in 1718" without the name of author, publisher or printer, I
have not been able to trace another copy. In other points of
interest connected with Calderon's drama, particularly to the
clearing up of the difficulty hitherto felt as to the confused list
of authorities at the end, the reader is also referred to the notes.
The present version of "The Purgatory of Saint Patrick" is, with the
exception of a few unimportant lines, an entirely new translation.
It is made with the utmost care, imitating all the measures and
contained, like the two preceding dramas, in the exact number of
lines of the original. One passage of the translation which I
published in 1853 is retained in the notes, as a tribute of respect
to the memory of the late John Rutter Chorley, it having been
mentioned with praise by that eminent Spanish scholar in an elaborate
review of my earlier translations from Calderon, which appeared in
the "Athenaeum", Nov. 19 and Nov. 26, 1853.
It only remains to add that the text I have followed is that of
Hartzenbusch in his edition of Calderon's Comedias, Madrid, 1856
("Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles"). His arrangement of the scenes
has been followed throughout, thus enabling the reader in a moment to
verify for himself the exactness of the translation by a reference to
the original, a crucial test which I rather invite than decline.
CLAPHAM PARK, Easter, 1873.
* * * * *
THE WONDER-WORKING MAGICIAN.
TO THE MEMORY OF
SHELLEY,
WHOSE ADMIRATION FOR
"THE LIGHT AND ODOUR OF THE FLOWERY AND STARRY AUTOS"
IS THE HIGHEST TRIBUTE TO THE BEAUTY OF
CALDERON'S POETRY,
THIS DRAMA
IS INSCRIBED.
* * * * *
PERSONS.
CYPRIAN.
THE DEMON.
LELIUS, The Governor of Antioch's Son.
FLORUS, friend of Lelius.
MOSCON, Servant of Cyprian.
CLARIN, Servant of Cyprian.
THE GOVERNOR OF ANTIOCH.
FABIUS, his Servant.
LYSANDER, the reputed Father of Justina.
JUSTINA.
LIVIA, her Maid.
A Servant.
A Soldier.
ATTENDANTS, Soldiers, People.
* * * * *
SCENE--Antioch and its environs.
THE WONDER-WORKING MAGICIAN.
* * * * *
ACT THE FIRST.
SCENE I.
A WOOD NEAR ANTIOCH.
Enter CYPPRIAN in a Student's gown, followed by CLARIN and MOSCON, as
poor Scholars, carrying books.
CYPRIAN. In the pleasant solitude
Of this tranquil spot, this thicket
Formed of interlacing boughs,
Buds, and flowers, and shrubs commingled,
You may leave me, leaving also,
As my best companions, with me,
(For I need none else) those books
Which I bad you to bring hither
From the house; for while, to-day,
Antioch, the mighty city,
Celebrates with such rejoicing
The great temple newly finished
Unto Jupiter, the bearing
Thither, also, of his image
Publicly, in grant procession,
To its shrine to be uplifted;--
I, escaping the confusion
Of the streets and squares, have flitted
Hitherward, to spend in study
What of daylight yet may glimmer.
Go, enjoy the festival,
Go to Antioch and mingle
In its various sports, returning
When the sun descending sinketh
To be buried in the waves,
Which, beneath the dark clouds' fringes,
Round the royal corse of gold,
Shine like sepulchres of silver.
Here you'll find me.
MOSCON. Sir, although
Most decidedly my wish is
To behold the sports, yet I
Cannot go without a whisper
Of some few five thousand words,
Which I'll give you in a jiffy.
Can it be that on a day
Of such free, such unrestricted
Revelry, and mirth, and fun,
You with your old books come hither
To this country place, rejecting
All the frolic of the city?
CLARIN. Well, I think my master's right;
For there's nothing more insipid
Than a grand procession day,
Half fandangos, priests, and fiddles.
MOSCON. Clarin, from the first to last,
All your life you've been a trickster,
A smart temporizing toady,
A bold flatterer, a trimmer,
Since you praise the thoughts of others,
And ne'er speak your own.
CLARIN. The civil
Way to tell a man he lies
Is to say he's wrong:--you twig me,
Now I think I speak my mind.
CYPRIAN. Moscon, Clarin, both I bid ye
Cease this silly altercation.
It is ever thus betwixt ye,
Puffed up with your little knowledge
Each maintains his own opinion.
Go, and (as I've said) here seek me
When night falls, and with the thickness
Of its shadows veils from view
This most fair and wondrous system
Of the universe.
MOSCON. How comes it,
That although you have admitted
'Tis not right to see the feast,
Yet you go to see it?
CLARIN. Simple
Is the answer: no one follows
The advice which he has given
To another.
MOSCON [aside]. To see Livia,
Would the gods that I were winged.
[Exit.
CLARIN [aside]. If the honest truth were told
Livia is the girl that gives me
Something worth the living for.
Even her very name has in it
This assurance: 'Livia', yes,
Minus 'a', I live for 'Livi'.*
[Exit.
[footnote] *This, of course, is a paraphrase of the original, which,
perhaps, may be given as an explanation.
"Ilega, 'Livia'.
Al 'na', y se, Livia, 'liviana'."
* * * * *
SCENE II.
CYPRIAN. Now I am alone, and may,
If my mind can be so lifted,
Study the great problem which
Keeps my soul disturbed, bewilder'd,
Since I read in Pliny's page
The mysterious words there written.
Which define a god; because
It doth seem beyond the limits
Of my intellect to find
One who all these signs exhibits.
This mysterious hidden truth
Must I seek for.
[Reads.
* * * * *
SCENE III.
Enter the DEMON, in gala dress. CYPRIAN.
DEMON [aside]. Though thou givest
All thy thoughts to the research,
Cyprian, thou must ever miss it,
Since I'll hide it from thy mind.
CYPRIAN. There's a rustling in this thicket.
Who is there? who art thou?
DEMON. Sir,
A mere stranger, who has ridden
All this morning up and down
These dark groves, not knowing whither,
Having lost my way, my horse,
To the emerald that encircles,
With a tapestry of green,
These lone hills, I've loosed, it gives him
At the same time food and rest.
I'm to Antioch bound, on business
Of importance, my companions
I have parted from; through listless
Lapse of thought (a thing that happens
To the most of earthly pilgrims),
I have lost my way, and lost
Comrades, servants, and assistants.
CYPRIAN. I am much surprised to learn
That in view of the uplifted
Towers of Antioch, you thus
Lost your way. There's not a single
Path that on this mountain side,
More or less by feet imprinted,
But doth lead unto its walls,
As to its one central limit.
By whatever path you take,
You'll go right.
DEMON. It is an instance
Of that ignorance which in sight
Even of truth the true goal misses.
And as it appears not wise
Thus to enter a strange city
Unattended and unknown,
Asking even my way, 'tis fitter
That 'till night doth conquer day,
Here while light doth last, to linger;
By your dress and by these books
Round you, like a learned circle
Of wise friends, I see you are
A great student, and the instinct
Of my soul doth ever draw me
Unto men to books addicted.
CYPRIAN. Have you studied much?
DEMON. Well, no;
But I've knowledge quite sufficient
Not to be deemed ignorant.
CYPRIAN. Then, what sciences know you?
DEMON. Many.
CYPRIAN. Why, we cannot reach even one
After years of studious vigil,
And can you (what vanity!)
Without study know so many?
DEMON. Yes; for I am of a country
Where the most exalted science
Needs no study to be known.
CYPRIAN. Would I were a happy inmate
Of that country! Here our studies
Prove our ignorance more.
DEMON. No figment
Is the fact that without study,
I had the superb ambition
For the first Professor's chair
To compete, and thought to win it,
Having very numerous votes.
And although I failed, sufficient
Glory is it to have tried.
For not always to the winner
Is the fame. If this you doubt,
Name the subject of your study,
And then let us argue on it;
I not knowing your opinion,
Even although it be the right,
Shall the opposite view insist on.
CYPRIAN. I am greatly gratified
That you make this proposition.
Here in Plinius is a passage
Which much anxious thought doth give me
How to understand, to know
Who's the God of whom he has written.
DEMON. 'Tis that passage which declares
(Well I know the words) this dictum:
"God is one supremest good,
One pure essence, one existence,
Self-sustained, all sight, all hands."
CYPRIAN. Yes, 'tis true.
DEMON. And what is in it
So abstruse?
CYPRIAN. I cannot find
Such a god as Plinius figures.
If he be the highest good,
Then is Jupiter deficient
In that attribute; we see him
Acting like a mortal sinner
Many a time,--this, Danae,
This, Europa, too, doth witness.
Can then, by the Highest Good,
All whose actions, all whose instincts,
Should be sacred and divine,
Human frailty be committed?
DEMON. These are fables which the learned
First made use of, to exhibit
Underneath the names of gods
What in truth was but a hidden
System of philosophy.
CYPRIAN. This reply is not sufficient,
Since such awe is due to God,
None should dare to Him attribute,
None should stain His name with sins,
Though these sins should be fictitious.
And considering well the case,
If the highest good is figured
By the gods, of course, they must
Will what is the best and fittest;
How, then, can some gods wish one thing,
Some another? This we witness
In the dubious responses
Which are by their statues given.
Here you cannot say I speak of
Learned abstractions of the ideal.
To two armies, if two shrines
Promise give of being victors,
One, of course, must lose the battle:
The conclusion is so simple,--
Need I say it? that two wills,
Mutually antagonistic,
Cannot lead unto one end.
They being thus in opposition,
One we must consider good,
One as bad we must consider.
But an evil will in God
Would imply a contradiction:
Then the highest good can dwell not
Among gods who know division.
DEMON. I deny your major, since
These responses may be given,
By the oracles, for ends
Which our intellectual vision
Cannot reach: 'tis providence.
Thus more good may have arisen
To the loser in that battle
Than its gain could bring the winner.
CYPRIAN. Granted; but that god ought not,
For the gods are not malicious,
To have promised victory;--
It would have been quite sufficient,
Without this most false assurance,
The defeat to have permitted.
Then if God must be all sight,
Every god should see distinctly
With clear vision to the end;
Seeing THAT, he erred in fixing
On a false conclusion; then
Though the deity may with fitness
Be divided into persons,
Yet His essence must be single
In the smallest circumstance.
DEMON. It was needful for this business,
That the oracle should rouse
The two hosts alike.
CYPRIAN. If fitting,
There were genii that could rouse them
(Good and bad, as they're distinguished
By the learned), who are, in fact,
Spirits who among us mingle,
And who good and evil acts,
Evil thoughts, suggest and whisper,
A convincing argument
For the immortal soul's existence:
Of these ministers could God
Have made use, nor thus exhibit
He was capable of a lie
To effect his ends?
DEMON. Consider,
That these seeming contradictions
Cannot our firm faith diminish
In the oneness of the gods,
If in things of higher import
They know naught of dissonance.
Take man's wondrous frame, for instance,
Surely that majestic structure
Once conception doth exhibit.
CYPRIAN. If man's maker then were one
He some vantage must have given him
O'er the others; and if they
All are equal,--'tis admitted
That they are so, from the fact
Of their mutual opposition
To each other,--when the thought
Of creating man was hinted
By one god, another could
Say, "No, no, I do not wish it."
Then if God must be all hands,
Time might come when they would differ,
One creating, one undoing,
Ere the other's work was finished,
Since the power of each was equal,
But unequal were their wishes.
Which of these two powers would conquer?
DEMON. On impossible and false issues
There can be no argument;--
But your premises admitting,
Say what then?
CYPRIAN. That there must be
One sole God, all hands, all vision,
Good Supreme, supreme in grace,
One who cannot err, omniscient,
One the highest, none can equal,
Not beginning, yet the Beginner,
One pure essence, one sole substance,
One wise worker, ozone sole willer;--
And though He in one or two
Or more persons be distinguished,
Yet the sovereign Deity
Must be one, sublime and single,
The first cause of every cause,
The first germ of all existence.
DEMON. How can I deny so clear,
[They rise.
So conclusive a position?
CYPRIAN. Do you feel it?
DEMON. Who would not
Feel to find another quicker
In the rivalry of wit?--
And though I am not deficient
In an answer, I restrain it,
Hearing steps approaching hither
Through the wood; besides 'tis time
I proceeded to the city.
CYPRIAN. Go in peace.
DEMON. Remain in peace.--
[Aside.
So involved in study IS he,
That I now must wean him from it,
Weaving round him the bewitchment
Of rare beauty. Since I have leave
To attempt my fires to kindle
In Justina's breast, one stroke,
Thus, two vengeances shall give me.
[Exit.
CYPRIAN. Never saw I such a man.
But since still my people linger,
I, the cause of so much doubt,
Will now strive to reconsider.
[He resumes his reading, without perceiving
the approach of those who enter.
* * * * *
SCENE IV.
Enter LELIUS and FLORUS.--CYPRIAN.
LELIUS. Further let us not proceed;
For these rocks, these boughs so thickly
Interwoven, that the sun
Cannot even find admittance,
Shall be the sole witnesses
Of our duel.
FLORUS. Then, this instant
Draw your sword; for here are deeds,
If in words elsewhere we've striven.
LELIUS. Yes, I know that in the field,
While the tongue is mute, the glitter
Of the sword speaks thus.
[They fight.
CYPRIAN. What's this?
Hold, good Florus! Lelius, listen!--
Here until your rage is calmed,
Even unarmed I stand betwixt ye.
LELIUS. Thus to interrupt my vengeance,
Whence, O Cyprian, have you risen
Like a spectre?
FLORUS. A wild wood-god,
Have you from these tree-trunks issued?
* * * * *
SCENE V.
Enter MOSCON and CLARIN.
MOSCON. Yonder, where we left our master,
I hear sword-strokes; run, run quickly.
CLARIN. Well, except to run away,
I am anything but nimble;--
Truly a retiring person.
MOSCON and CLARIN. Sir....
CYPRIAN. No more: your gabble irks me.--
How? What's this? Two noble friends,
Who in blood, in birth, in lineage,
Are to-day of Antioch all
Its expectancy, the city's
Eye of fashion, one the son
Of the Governor, of the princely
House Colalto, one the heir,
Thus to peril, as of little
Value, two such precious lives
To their country and their kindred?
LELIUS. Cyprian, although respect
Which on many grounds I give thee,
Holds my sword suspended thus
In due deference for an instant,--
To the scabbard's calm repose
It hath got no power to win it.
Thou of science knowest more,
Than the duel, pretermitting
This, that when two nobles meet
In the field, no power can link them
Friends again, save this, that one
Must his life give as a victim.
FLORUS. This I also say, and ask thee,
With thy people, that thou quittest,
Leaving us to end our quarrel
Without any help or hindrance.
CYPRIAN. Though it seems to you my calling
Makes me know the laws but little
Of the duel--that strict code
Valour and vain pride have written,
You are wrong, for I was born
With the obligations fitting
Rank like yours, to know in truth
Infamy and honour's limits.
The devotion to my studies
Has my courage not diminished,
For they oftentimes shake hands
Arms and letters as though kinsmen.
If to meet here in the field
Was the quarrel's first condition,
Having met and fought, its lies
Calumny can never whisper.
And the cause you thus can tell me
Of the feud that brings you hither;
For I promise, if, on hearing
What to me is thus committed,
I perceive that satisfaction
Must on either side be given,
Here to leave you both alone,
Unobserved by any witness.
LELIUS. Then on this condition solely,
That you leave us, when the bitter
Truth is told, to end our quarrel,
I to tell the cause am willing.
I a certain lady love,
The same lady as his mistress
Florus also loves; now see,
How incompatible are our wishes!--
Since betwixt two jealous nobles
No mediation is admitted.
FLORUS. I this lady love so much,
That the sunlight I would hinder
From beholding her sweet face.
Since then all interposition
Is in vain, pray stand aside,
And our quarrel let us finish.
CYPRIAN. Stay, for one more thing I'd know.
Tell me this of your fair mistress,
Is she possible to your hopes,
Or impossible to your wishes?--
LELIUS. Oh: she is so good and wise,
That if even the sun enkindled
Jealousy in the heart of Florus,
It was jealousy pure and simple,
Without cause, for even the sun
Dare not look upon her visage.
CYPRIAN. Would you marry with her, then?
FLORUS. This is all my heart's ambition.
CYPRIAN. And would you?
LELIUS. Ah, would to heaven,
I were destined for such blisses!--
For although she's very poor,
Virtue dowers her with its riches.
CYPRIAN. If you both aspire to wed her,
Is it not an act most wicked,
Most unworthy, thus beforehand
Her unspotted fame to injure?
What will say the world, if one
Of you two shall marry with her
After having killed the other
For her sake? The supposition
Is not probable in fact,
To imagine it is sufficient.
I by no means say you should
Each your chances try to win her
At one time, for I would blush
Such a craven proposition
Came from me, because the lover
Who could keep his jealousy hidden,
Would condone even shame thereafter,
Were the opportunity given;
But I say that you should learn
Which of you it is your mistress
Gives the preference to, then....
LELIUS. Stay!--
For it were an act too timid,
Too faint-hearted thus to ask
Of a lady such admission
As the choosing him or me.
For if me she chose, more fixed
Is my call for satisfaction;
For his fault has this addition,
He loves one who loves but me.
If to him the choice is given,
This intensifies my anger
All the more, that she, my mistress,
Whom I love, should love another.
Her selection could do little
In the matter, which at last
To our swords should be committed,--
The accepted for his honour,
The refused for his dismissal.
FLORUS. I confess that I adopt
Altogether that opinion,
Still the privilege of selection
May to ladies be permitted;
So to-day I mean to ask her
Of her father. 'Tis sufficient
To have come here to the field,
And my naked sword uplifted,
(Specially as one is by
Who the further fight resisteth,)
For my honour;--so to sheathe,
Lelius, my sword I'm willing.
[Sheathes his sword.
LELIUS. By your argument and action,
Florus, you have half convinced me;
I forego the remaining half--
True or false, I thus act with you.
[Sheathes his sword.
I to-day will seek her father.
CYPRIAN. On, of course, the supposition,
That this lady you pay court to
Suffers naught by the admission,
Since you both have spoken proudly
Of her virtue and her strictness,
Tell me who she is; for I,
Who am held throughout the city
In esteem, would for you both
Speak to her at first a little
That she thus may be prepared
When her father tells your wishes.
LELIUS. You are right.
CYPRIAN. Her name?
FLORUS. Justina,
Daughter of Lysander.
CYPRIAN. Little,
Now that I have heard her name,
Seem the praises you have given her;
She is virtuous as she's noble.
Instantly I'll pay my visit.
FLORUS [aside]. May heaven grant that in my favour
Her cold heart be moved to pity!
[Exit.
LELIUS. Love, my hopes with laurels crown
When they are to her submitted!
[Exit.
CYPRIAN. Further mischief or misfortune,
Grant me, heaven, that I may hinder!
[Exit.
* * * * *
SCENE VI.
MOSCON, CLARIN.
MOSCON. Has your worship heard our master
Now is gone to pay a visit
To Justina?
CLARIN. Yes, my lord.
But what matter if he didn't?
MOSCON. Matter quite enough, your worship;
He has no business there.
CLARIN. Why, prithee?
MOSCON. Why? because I die for Livia,
Who is maid to this Justina,
And I wouldn't have even the sun
Get a glimpse of her through the window.
CLARIN. Well, that's good; but, for a lady,
To contend were worse than silly,
Whom I mean to make my wife.
MOSCON. Excellent, faith! the fancy tickles
Quite my fancy. Let her say
Who it is that annoys or nicks her
To a nicety. Let's go see her,
And she'll choose.
CLARIN. A good idea!--
Though I fear she'll pitch on you.
MOSCON. Have you then that wise suspicion?
CLARIN. Yes; for always these same Livias
Choose the worst, th'ungrateful minxes.*
[Exeunt.
[footnote] *The 'asonante' versification in 'i-e', which has been
kept up through these six scenes, ends here. The seventh scene
commences in rhymed five-line stanzas, which change to the asonante
in e-e, at the beginning of Lysander's long speech.
* * * * *
SCENE VII.
A HALL IN THE HOUSE OF LYSANDER.
Enter JUSTINA and LYSANDER.
JUSTINA. Consolation, sir, is vain,
After what I've seen to-day:
The whole city, madly gay,
Error-blinded and insane,
Consecrating shrine and fane
To an image, which I know,
Cannot be a god, although
Some demoniac power may pass,
Making breathe the silent brass
As a proof that it is so.
LYSANDER. Fair Justina, thou indeed,
Wert not who thou art, if thou
Didst not weep as thou dost now,
Didst not in thy pure heart bleed
For what Christ's divinest creed
Suffers on this sinful day.
JUSTINA. Thus my lineage I display:--
For thy child I could not be,
Could I without weeping see
This idolatrous display.
LYSANDER. Ah, my good, my gentle maid!
Thou art not my daughter, no,
'Twere too happy, if 'twere so.
But, O God! what's this I've said?--
My life's secret is betrayed!
'Twas my soul that spoke aloud.
JUSTINA. What do you say, sir?
LYSANDER. Oh! a crowd
Of old thoughts my heart hath stirred.
JUSTINA. Many times methought I heard
What but now you have avowed,
And yet never wished to hear,
At the risk perchance of paining,
A more accurate explaining
Of your sorrow and my fear;
But since now it doth appear
Right that I should be possess'd
Of the whole truth half confess'd,
Let me say, though bold appearing,--
Trust your secret to my hearing,
Since it hath escaped your breast.
LYSANDER. Ah! Justina, I have long
Kept this secret from your ears,
Fearing from your tender years
That the telling might be wrong;
But now seeing you are strong,
Firm in thought, in action brave,
Seeing too, that with this stave,
I go creeping o'er the ground,
Rapping with a hollow sound
At the portals of the grave,
Knowing that my time is brief,
I would not here leave you, no,
In your ignorance; I owe
My own peace, too, this relief:
Then attentive to my grief
Let your pleasure list.
JUSTINA. A fear
Struggles in my breast.
LYSANDER. Severe
Is the test my duty pays.
JUSTINA. From this most perplexing maze
Oh, sir, rescue me.
LYSANDER. Then hear.
I, most beautiful Justina,
Am Lysander.... This commencement
With my name need not surprise you;
For though known to you already,
It is right, for all that follows,
That it should be well remembered,
Since of me you know no more
Than what this my name presenteth.
Yes, I am Lysander, son
Of that city which on Seven
Hills a hydra seems of stone,
Since it seven proud heads erecteth;
Of that city now the seat
Of the mighty Roman empire,
Cradle of Christ's wider realm,--
Boon that Rome alone could merit.
There of poor and humble parents
I was born, if "poor" expresses
Well their rank who left behind them
Virtues, not vain earthly treasures.
Both of them by birth were Christians,
Joyful both to be descended
From brave sires who with their blood
Happily life's page had reddened,
Terminating the dull scroll
With death's bright emblazoned letters.
In the Christian faith well grounded
I grew up, and so well learnt it,
That I would, in its defence,
Even a thousand lives surrender.
I was young still, when to Rome,
In disguise and ill attended,
Came our good Pope Alexander,
Who then prudently directed
The high apostolic see,
Though its place there was not settled;
For, as the despotic power
Of the stern and cruel gentiles
Satisfies its thirst with blood
From the martyrs' veins that shed it,
So must still the primitive church
Keep concealed its sons and servants;
Not that they decline to die,
Not that martyrdom is dreaded
But that rebel rage should not,
At one stroke, one hour of vengeance,
Triumph o'er the ruined church,
So that no one should be left it
Who could preach and teach the word,
Who could catechise the gentile.
Alexander being in Rome,
I was secretly presented
To him there, and from his hand
Which was graciously extended,
With his blessing I received
Holy Orders, which the seraphs
Well might envy me, since man
Only such an honour merits.
Alexander, as my mission,
Unto Antioch then sent me,
Where the law of Christ in secret
I should preach. With glad contentment
I obeyed, and at their mercy,
Through so many nations wending,
Came at length to Antioch;
And when I, these hills ascending,
Saw beneath me in the valley
All its golden towers and temples,
The sun failed me, and down sinking
Drew with him the day, presenting
For my solace a companion,
And a substitute for his presence
In the light of stars, a pledge
That he'd soon return to bless me.
With the sun I lost my way,
And then wandering dejected
Through the windings of the forest,
Found me in the dim recesses
Of a natural bower, wherein
Even the numerous rays that trembled
Downward from each living torch
Could in noways find an entrance,
For to black clouds turned the leaves
That by day were green with freshness.
Here arranging to await
The new sun's reviving presence,
Giving fancy that full scope,
That wide range which it possesses,
I in solitude indulged
Many and many a deep reflection.
Thus absorbed was I in thought
When there came to me the echo
Of a sigh half heard, for half
To its owner retroverted.
Then collecting in mine ear
All my senses joined together,
I again heard more distinctly
That weak cry, that faint expression,
That mute idiom of the sad,
Since by it they're comprehended.
From a woman came that groan
To whose sigh so low and gentle
Followed a man's deeper voice,
Who thus speaking low addressed her:
"Thou first stain of noblest blood
By my hands this moment perish,
Ere thou meetest with thy death
'Neath the hands of infamous headsmen."--
Then the hapless woman said
In a voice that sobbed and trembled,
"Ah, lament for thine own blood,
But for me do not lament thee!"--
I attempted then to reach them,
That the stroke might be prevented,
But I could not, since the voices
At that moment ceased and ended,
And a horseman rode away
'Mong the tree-trunks undetected.
Loadstone of my deep compassion
Was that voice which still exerted
All its failing powers to speak
Amid groans and tears this sentence,--
"Dying innocent and a Christian
I a martyr's death may merit."--
Following the polar-star
Of the voice, I came directly
Where the gloom revealed a woman,
Though I could not well observe her,
Who in life's despairing struggle,
Hand to hand with death contended.
Scarcely was I heard, when she
Summoning up her strength addressed me,--
"Blood-stained murderer mine, come back,
Nor in this last hour desert me
Of my life."--"I am," said I,
"Only one whom chance hath sent here,
Guided it may be by heaven,
To assist you in this dreadful
Hour of trial."--"Vain," she said,
"Is the favour that your mercy
Offers to my life, for see,
Drop by drop the life-stream ebbeth,
Let this hapless one enjoy it,
Who it seems that heaven intendeth,
Being born upon my grave,
All my miseries should inherit."--
So she died, and then I...
* * * * *
SCENE VIII.
LIVIA, JUSTINA, and LYSANDER.
Enter LIVIA.
LIVIA. Sir,
The same tradesman who so presses
To be paid, comes here to seek you,
By the magistrate attended.
That you were not in, I told him:
By that door you have an exit.
JUSTINA. This untimely interruption
By their coming, how it frets me!
For upon your tragic story
Life, soul, reason, all depended!--
But retire, sir, lest the justice
Should here meet you, if he enters.
LYSANDER. Ah! with what indignities
Poverty must be contented!
[Exit.
JUSTINA. They are coming here, no doubt,
Outside I can hear some persons.
LIVIA. No, they are not they. I see
It is Cyprian.
JUSTINA. How? what sendeth
Cyprian here?
* * * * *
SCENE IX.
Enter CYPRIAN, CLARIN, and MOSCON.
CYPRIAN. A wish to serve you
Is the sole cause of my presence.
For on seeing the officials
Issuing from your house, the friendship
Which I owe unto Lysander
Made me bold herein to enter;
But to know ([Aside.] Disturbed, bewildered
Am I.) if by chance ([Aside.] What gelid
Frost is freezing up my veins!)
I in any way could help you.
([Aside.] Ah, how badly have I spoken!--
Fire not frost my blood possesses!)
JUSTINA. May heaven guard you many years,
Since in his more grave concernments,
Thus you honour my dear father
With your favours.
CYPRIAN. I shall ever
Be most gratified to serve you.
([Aside.] What disturbs me, what unnerves me?)
JUSTINA. He is not just now at home.
CYPRIAN. Thus then, lady, I can better
Tell you what is the true cause
That doth bring me here at present;
For the cause that you have heard
Is not that which wholly led me
Here to see you.
JUSTINA. Then, what is it?
CYPRIAN. This, which craves your brief attention.--
Fair Justina, beauty's shrine,*
To whose human loveliness
Nature, with a fond excess,
Adds such marks of the divine,
'Tis your rest that doth incline
Hither my desire to-day:
But see what the tyrant sway
Of despotic fate can do,--
While I bring your rest to you,
You from me take mine away.
Lelius, of his passion proud,
(Never less was love to blame!)
Florus, burning with love's flame,
(Ne'er could flame be more allowed!)
Each of them by vows they vowed
Sought to kill his friend for you:
I for you disturbed the two,
(Woe is me!) but see the end;
While from death I saved my friend,
You my own death give in lieu.
Lest the scandal-monger's hum
Should be buzzed about your name,
Here to speak with you I came,
(Would that I had never come!)
That your choice might strike it dumb,
Being the umpire in the cause,
Being the judge in love's sweet laws;--
But behold what I endure,
While I their sick hearts may cure,
Jealousy mine own heart gnaws.
Lady, I proposed to be
Their bold spokesman here, that you
Might decide betwixt the two
Which you would select (ah, me!)
That I might (oh, misery!)
Ask you of your father: vain
This pretence. No more I'll feign:--
For you see while I am speaking
About them, my heart is seeking
But a vent for its own pain.
[footnote] * The five-lined rhymed stanza here recommences, and
continues to the end of the scene.
JUSTINA. Half in wonder and dismay
At the vile address you make me,
Reason, speech, alike forsake me,
And I know not what to say.
Never in the slightest way
Have your clients had from me
Encouragement for this embassy--
Florus never--Lelius no:--
Of the scorn that I can show
Let then this a warning be.
CYPRIAN. If I, knowing that you loved
Some one else, would dare to seek
Your regard, my love were weak,
And could justly be reproved.
But here seeing you stand unmoved,
Like a rock mid raging seas,
No extraneous miseries
Make me say I love you now.
'Tis not for my friends I bow,
So your warning hear with ease.--
To Lelius what shall I say?
JUSTINA. That he
Well may trust the boding fears
Of his love of many years.
CYPRIAN. To Florus?
JUSTINA. Not my face to see.
CYPRIAN. And to myself?
JUSTINA. Your love should be
Not so bold.
CYPRIAN. Though a god should woo?
JUSTINA. Will a god do more for you
Than for those I have denied?
CYPRIAN. Yes.
JUSTINA. Well then, I have replied
To Lelius, Florus, and to you.
[Exeunt JUSTINA and CYPRIAN at opposite sides.
* * * * *
SCENE X.
CLARIN, MOSCON, and LIVIA.
CLARIN. Livia, heigh!
MOSCON. And Livia, ho!--
List good lass.
CLARIN. We're here, we two.
LIVIA. Well, what WANT you, sir? and YOU,
What do you want?
CLARIN. We both would show,
If perchance you do not know,
That we love you to distraction.
On a murderous transaction
We came here, to kill each other:--
So to put an end to the bother,
Just choose one for satisfaction.
LIVIA. Why the thing that you're demanding
Is so great, it hath bereft me
Of my wits. My grief hath left me
Without sense or understanding.
Choose but one! My heart expanding,
Beats so hard a strait to shun!
I one only! 'Tis for fun
That you ask me so to do.
For with heart enough for two,
Why require that I choose one?
CLARIN. Two at once would you have to woo?
Would not two embarrass you, pray?
LIVIA. No, we women have a way
To dispose of them two by two.
MOSCON. What's the way? do tell us, do;--
What is it? speak.
LIVIA. You put one out!--
I would love them, do not doubt....
MOSCON. How?
LIVIA. ALTERNATIVELY.
CLARIN. Eh,
What's ALTERNATIVELY?
LIVIA. 'Tis to say,
That I would love them day about.
[Exit.
MOSCON. Well, I choose to-day: good-bye.
CLARIN. I, to-morrow, the better part.
So I give it with all my heart.
MOSCON. Livia, in fine, for whom I die,
To-day love me, and to-day love I.
Happy is he who so much can say.
CLARIN. Hearken, my friend: you know my way.
MOSCON. Why this speech? Does a threat lie in it?
CLARIN. Mind, she is not yours a minute
After the clock strikes twelve to-day.
[Exeunt.
* * * * *
SCENE XI.
THE STREET BEFORE LYSANDER'S HOUSE: NIGHT
Enter FLORUS and LELIUS at opposite sides, not seeing each other.
LELIUS [aside]. Scarcely has the darksome night
O'er the brow of heaven extended*
Its black veil, when I come hither
To adore this sacred threshold;
For although at Cyprian's prayer,
I my sharp sword have suspended,
I have not my love, for love
Cannot be suspended ever.
[footnote] *Asonante in e-e, to the end of the Act.
FLORUS [aside]. Here the dawn will find me waiting:--
Here, because 'tis force compels me
To go hence, for I, elsewhere,
Am away from my true centre.
Would to love the day had come,
And with it the dear, expected
Answer Cyprian may bring me,
Risking all upon that venture.
LELIUS [aside]. I have surely in that window
Heard a noise.
FLORUS [aside]. Some sound descends here
From that balcony.
* * * * *
SCENE XII.
The Demon appears at a window in the house of LYSANDER.
LELIUS [aside]. A figure
Issues from it, whose dim presence
I distinguish.
FLORUS [aside]. Through the darkness
I can there perceive some person.
DEMON [aside]. For the many persecutions
O'er Justina's head impending,
Her pure honour to defame
Thus I make a bold commencement.
[He descends by a ladder.
LELIUS [aside]. But, O woe! what's this I witness!--
FLORUS [aside]. What do I see! Oh, wretched! wretched!--
LELIUS [aside]. From the balcony to the ground
The dark figure has descended.
FLORUS [aside]. From her house a man comes forth!--
Jealousy kill me not, preserve me,
'Till I discover who he is.
LELIUS [aside]. I will try to intercept him
And find out at once who thus
Tastes the bliss I've lost for ever.
[They advance with drawn swords to recognise
the person who has descended.
DEMON [aside]. Not alone Justina's fame
Do I by this act discredit,
But dissensions, perhaps murders,
Thus provoke. Ope, earth's dark centre,
And receive me, leaving here
This confusion
[He disappears between FLORUS and LELIUS, who meet together.
* * * * *
SCENE XIII.
FLORUS and LELIUS.
LELIUS. Sir, whoever
You may be, it doth import me
To know who you are directly;
So at every risk I come here,
On this resolute quest determined.
Say who are you.
FLORUS. If the accident
Of my having been the observer
Of your secret love, compels you
To this valorous aggression,
More than it can you concern
Me to know, it doth concern me
To know you; for to be curious
Is far less than to be jealous.
Yes, by Heaven! for who is master
Of the house have I to learn here,
Who it is at such an hour,
By this balcony ascending,
Gaineth that which I lose weeping
At these gratings.
LELIUS. This excelleth,
Good, in faith, is it thus to dim
The clear light of my resentment,
By attributing to me
That which solely your offence is!--
Who you are I have to know,
Death to give to him who has left me
Dead with jealousy here, by coming
From this balcony.
FLORUS. How excessive
How superfluous is this caution,
Proving what it would dissemble!
LELIUS. Vainly would the tongue untangle
That which the keen sword can better
Thus cut through.
FLORUS. With it I answer.
[They fight.
LELIUS. In this way I'll know for certain
Who is the admitted lover
Of Justina.
FLORUS. My intention
Is the same. I'll die or know you.
* * * * *
SCENE XIV.
Enter CYPRIAN, MOSCON, and CLARIN.
CYPRIAN. Gentlemen, I pray you let me
Interpose in this your quarrel,
Since by accident I am present.
FLORUS. You cannot oblige me more
Than by letting the fight be ended.
CYPRIAN. Florus?
FLORUS. Yes, for sword in hand,
I my name deny not ever
To who asks.
CYPRIAN. I'm at your side,
Death to him who would offend you.
LELIUS. You produce in me less fear,
Both of you thus joined together,
Than did he alone.
CYPRIAN. What! Lelius?
LELIUS. Yes.
CYPRIAN. I am prevented
[To Florus.
Now from standing at your side,
Since between you I present me.
How is this? In one day twice
Have I your disputes to settle!--
LELIUS. Then this time will be the last,
For we've settled them already;
Since in knowing who is he
Who Justina's heart possesses,
Now no more my hope remaineth,
Even the thought of it hath left me.
If you have not to Justina
Spoken yet, do not address her;
This I ask you in the name
Of my wrongs and my resentments,
Having seen her secret favours
Florus' happier fate deserveth.
From this balcony I saw him,
From my lost delight descending;
And my heart is not so base
As to meanly love, in presence
Of such jealousies so well proved,
Of disillusions, ah! so certain.
[Exit.
FLORUS. Stay.
* * * * *
SCENE XV.
CYPRIAN. You must not follow him,
[Aside. (Oh, this news with death o'erwhelms me!)
Since if he who is the loser
Of what you have gained, expressly
Says he would forget it, you
Should not try his patient temper.
FLORUS. Both by you and him at once
Has mine own been too well tested.
Speak not now unto Justina
About me; for though full vengeance
I propose to take for being
Thus supplanted and rejected,
Every hope of her being mine
Now has ceased, for shameful were it,
In the face of such proved facts,
To persist in my addresses.
[Exit.
* * * * *
SCENE XVI.
CYPRIAN, MOSCON, and CLARIN.
CYPRIAN [aside]. What is this, O heavens! I hear?
Can it be the two are jealous
Of each other at one time?
And I too of both together?--
Doubtless from some strange delusion
The two suffer, which I welcome
With a sort of satisfaction,
For to it I am indebted
For the fact of their desisting
From their suit and their pretension.--
Moscon, have for me by morning
A rich court-suit; sword and feathers,
Clarin, be thy care; for love
In a certain airy splendour
Takes delight; for now no longer
Books or studies give me pleasure;--
Love they say doth murder mind,
Learning dies when he is present.
[Exeunt.
ACT THE SECOND.
SCENE I.
THE STREET IN FRONT OF LYSANDER'S HOUSE.
Enter CYPRIAN, MOSCON, and CLARIN, in gala dresses.
CYPRIAN [aside]. Where, presumptuous thoughts, ah! where,
Would you lead me, whither go?
If for certain now you know
That the high attempts you dare
Are delusive dreams of bliss,
Since you strive to scale heaven's wall,
But from that proud height to fall
Headlong down a dark abyss?
I Justina saw..... So near
Would to God I had not seen her,
Nor in her divine demeanour
All the light of heaven's fourth sphere.
Lovers twain for her contend,
Both being jealous each should woo,
And I, jealous of the two,
Know not which doth most offend.
All I know is, that suspicion,
Her disdain, my own desires,
Fill my heart with furious fires--
Drive me, ah! to my perdition.
This I know, and know no more,
This I feel in all my strait;
Heavens! Justina is my fate!
Heavens! Justina I adore!--
Moscon.
MOSCON. Sir.
CYPRIAN. Inquire, I pray,
If Lysander's in.
MOSCON. I fly.
CLARIN. No, sir, no. On me rely,--
Moscon can't go there to-day.
CYPRIAN. Ever wrangling in this way,
How ye both my patience try!
Why can he not go? Say why?
CLARIN. Because to-day is not his day.
Mine it is, sir, to his sorrow.
So your message I will bear.
Moscon can't to-day go there;
He will have his turn to-morrow.
CYPRIAN. What new madness can this be
Which your usual feud doth show?
But now neither of you go,
Since in all her brilliancy
Comes Justina.
CLARIN. From the street
To her house she goes.
* * * * *
SCENE II.
Enter JUSTINA and LIVIA, veiled.--CYPRIAN, MOSCON, and CLARIN.
JUSTINA. Ah, me!
Cyprian's here. [Aside to her.] See, Livia, see!
CYPRIAN [aside]. I must strive and be discreet,
Feigning with a ready wit,
Till my jealousy I can prove.
I will only speak of love,
If my jealousy will permit.
Not in vain, senora sweet,--
Have I changed my student's dress,
The livery of thy loveliness,
As a servant at thy feet,
Thus I wear. If sighs could move thee
I would labour to deserve thee;
Give me leave at least to serve thee,
Since thou wilt not let me love thee.
JUSTINA. Slight effect, sir, as I see,
Have my words produced on you,
Since they have not brought....
CYPRIAN. Too true!
JUSTINA. A forgetfulness of me.
In what way must I explain
Clearer than I have done before,
That persistence at my door
Is and ever must be vain?
If a day, a month, a year,
If for ages there you stay,
Naught but this that now I say
Ever can you hope to hear.
As it were my latest breath,
Let this sad assurance move thee,--
Fate forbids that I should love thee,
Cyprian, except in death.
[She moves towards the house.
CYPRIAN. At these words my hopes revive:--
Sad! no, no, to joy they move me,
For if thou in death canst love me,
Soon for me will death arrive.
Be it so; and since so nigh
Comes the hour your words to prove--
Ah! even now begin to love,
Since I now begin to die.
[JUSTINA enters.
* * * * *
SCENE III.
CYPRIAN, MOSCON, CLARIN, and LIVIA.
CLARIN. Livia, while my master yonder,
Like a living skeleton,
Life and motion being gone,
On his luckless love doth ponder,
Give me an embrace.
LIVIA. Stay, stay.
Patience, man! until I see,
For I like my conscience free,
If to-day is your right day.--
Tuesday, yes, and Wednesday, no.
CLARIN. What are you counting there? Awake!
Moscon's mum.
LIVIA. He might mistake,
And I wish not to act so.
For, desiring to pursue
A just course betwixt you both,
Turn about, I would be loth
Not to give you each his due.
But I see that you are right,
'Tis your day.
CLARIN. Embrace me, then.
LIVIA. Yes, again, and yet again.
MOSCON. Hark to me, my lady bright,
May I from your ardour borrow
A good omen in my case;
And as Clarin you embrace,
Moscon you'll embrace to-morrow!
LIVIA. Your suspicion is, in fact,
Quite absurd; on me rely.
Jupiter forbid that I
Should commit so bad an act
As to be cool in any way
To a friend. I will to thee
Give an embrace in equity,
When it is your worship's day.
[Exit.
* * * * *
SCENE IV.
CYPRIAN, MOSCON, and CLARIN.
CLARIN. Well, I'll not be by to see,
That's a comfort.
MOSCON. How? why so?
Need I be chagrined to know,
If the girl's not mine, that she
Thus to you her debt did pay.
CLARIN. No.
MOSCON. This makes my point more strong,
Since to me it were no wrong
If it chanced not on my day.
But our master yonder, see,
How absorbed he seems.
CLARIN. More near,
If he speaks I'd like to hear.
MOSCON. And I, too, would like.
CYPRIAN. Ah me!
[As MOSCON and CLARIN approach CYPRIAN from opposite sides, he
gesticulates with his arms, and accidentally strikes both.
Love, how great thy agonies!--
CLARIN. Ah! ah, me!
MOSCON. Ah, me! I bawl.
CLARIN. Well, I think that we may call
This the land of the 'sigh-ah-mes'!
CYPRIAN. What! and have you both been here?
CLARIN. I, at least, was here, I'll swear.
MOSCON. And I, also.
CYPRIAN. O, despair
End at once my sad career!
Ah, what human heart to woe
Like to mine has given a home?
* * * * *
SCENE V.
THE COUNTRY.
CYPRIAN, CLARIN, and MOSCON.
CLARIN. Whither Moscon, do we roam?
MOSCON. When we've reached the end, we'll know.
Leagues behind us lies the town,
Still we go.
CLARIN. A strange proceeding!--
Little time have we for reading,
Idly pacing up and down.
CYPRIAN. Clarin, get thee home.
MOSCON. And I?
CLARIN. Sly-boots, would you rather stay?
CYPRIAN. Go: here leave me both; away!
CLARIN. Mind, he tells us both to fly.
[Exeunt CLARIN and MOSCON.
* * * * *
SCENE VI.
CYPRIAN. Memory of a maddened brain,
Do not with such strong control
Make me think another soul
Is what in my heart doth reign.
Blind idolator I have been--
Lost in love's ambitious flight,
Since such beauty met my sight,
Since a goddess I have seen.
Yet in such a maze of woe
Rigorous fate doth make me move,
That I know but whom I love,
And of whom I am jealous--no.
Yet this passion is so strong--
Ah, so sweet this fascination,
Driving my imagination
With resistless force along--
That I would (I know too well
How this madness doth degrade me)
To some devilish power to aid me,
Were it even to rise from hell,
Where some mightier power hath kept it,--
Sharing all its pains in common,--
I would, to possess this woman,
Give my soul.
* * * * *
SCENE VII.
The Demon and CYPRIAN.
Demon [within]. And I accept it.
[A great tempest is heard, with thunder and lightning.
CYPRIAN. What's this, ye heavens so pure?
Clear but a moment hence and now obscure,
Ye fright the gentle day!
The thunder-balls, the lightning's forked ray,
Leap from its riven breast--
Terrific shapes it cannot keep at rest;
All the whole heaven a crown of clouds doth wear,
And with the curling mist, like streaming hair,
This mountain's brow is bound.
Outspread below, the whole horizon round
Is one volcanic pyre.
The sun is dead, the air is smoke, heaven fire.
Philosophy, how far from thee I stray,
When I cannot explain the marvels of this day!
And now the sea, upborne on clouds the while,
Seems like some ruined pile,
That crumbling down the wind as 'twere a wall,
In dust not foam doth fall.
And struggling through the gloom,
Facing the storm, a mighty ship seeks room
On the open sea, whose rage it seems to court,
Flying the dangerous pity of the port.
The noise, the terror, and that fearful cry,
Give fatal augury
Of the impending stroke. Death hesitates,
For each already dies who death awaits.
With portents the whole atmosphere is rife,
Nor is it all the effect of elemental strife.
The ship is rigged with tempest as it flies.*
It rushes on the lee,
The war is now no longer of the sea;
Upon a hidden rock
It strikes: it breaks as with a thunder shock.
Blood flakes the foam where helpless it is tost.
[footnote] *Hartzenbusch remarks that there is no corresponding rhyme
for this line in the original, and that both the sense and the
versification are defective.--'Comedias de Calderon', t. 2, p. 178.
[The sound of the tempest increases, and voices are heard within.
VOICES WITHIN. We sink! we sink! we're lost!
DEMON [within]. For what I have in hand,
I'll trust this plank to bear me to the land.
CYPRIAN. As scorning the wild wave
One man alone his life attempts to save.
While lurching over, mid the billows' swell,
The great ship sinks to where the Tritons dwell;
There, with its mighty ribs asunder rent,
It lies a corse of the sea, its grave and monument.
[Enter The Demon, dripping with wet, as if escaped from the sea.
DEMON [aside]. For the end I wish to gain
It was of necessity
That upon this sapphire sea
I this fearful storm should feign,
And in form unlike that one
Which in this wild wood I wore,
When I found my deepest lore
By his keener wit outdone,
Come again to assail him here,
Trusting better now to prove
Both his intellect and his love.--
[Aloud.
Earth, loved earth, O mother dear,
From this monster, this wild sea,
Give me shelter in thy arms.
CYPRIAN. Lose, my friend, the dread alarms,
And the cruel memory
Of thy peril happily past;
Since we learn or late or soon,
That beneath the inconstant moon
Human bliss doth never last.
DEMON. Who are thou, at whose kind feet
Has my fortune cast me here?
CYPRIAN. One who with a pitying tear,
For a ruin so complete,
Would alleviate your woe.
DEMON. Ah, impossible!--for me
Never, never, can there be
Any solace.
CYPRIAN. How, why so?
DEMON. All my priceless wealth I've lost...
But I'm wrong to thus complain,
I'll forget, nay, think it gain,
Since my life it hath not cost.
CYPRIAN. Now that the wild whirl malign
Of this earthquake storm doth cease,
And the sky returns to peace,
Quiet, calm, and crystalline,
And the bright succeeds the dark
With such strange rapidity,
That the storm would seem to be
Only raised to sink thy bark,
Tell me who thou art, repay
Thus a sympathy so sincere.
DEMON. It has cost me to come here
More than you have seen to-day,
More than I can well express;
Of the miseries I recall
This ship's loss is least of all.
Would you see that clearly?
CYPRIAN. Yes.
DEMON. I am since you wish to know it,
An epitome, a wonder*
Of all happiness and misfortune,
One I have lost, I weep the other.
By my gifts was I so glorious,
So conspicuous in my order,
Of a lineage so illustrious,
With a mind so well informed,
That my rare endowments feeling,
A great king (in truth the noblest
King of Kings, for all would tremble
If he looked in anger on them,)
In his palace roofed with diamonds
And with gems as bright as morning,
(If I called them stars, 'tis certain
The comparison were too modest,)
His especial favourite called me.
Which high epithet of honour
So enflamed my pride, as rival
For his royal seat I plotted,
Hoping soon my victor footsteps
Would his golden thrones have trodden.
It was an unheard-of daring,
THAT, chastized I must acknowledge,
I was mad; but then repentance
Were a still insaner folly.
Obstinate in my resistance,
With my spirit yet unconquered,
I preferred to fall with courage
Than surrender with dishonour.
If the attempt was rash, the rashness
Was not solely my misfortune,
For among his numerous vassals
Not a few my standard followed.
From his court, in fine, thus vanquished,
Though part victor in the contest,
I went forth, my eyes outflashing
Flames of anger and abhorrence,
And my lips proclaiming vengeance
For the public insult offered
To my pride, among his people
Scattering murder, rapine, horror.
Then a bloody pirate, I
The wide plains of the sea ran over,
Argus of its dangerous shallows,
Lynx-eyed where the reefs lay covered;
In that vessel which the wind
Bit by bit so soon demolished,
In that vessel which the sea
As a dustless ruin swallowed,
I to-day these fields of crystal
Eagerly ran o'er, my object
Being stone by stone to examine,
Tree by tree to search this forest:--
For a man in it is living,
Whom it is of great importance
I should see, this day expecting
The fulfilment of a promise
Which he gave and I accepted.
This infuriate tempest stopped me.
And although my powerful genius
Could chain up east, south, and north wind,
I cared not, as if despairing
Of success, with other objects,
Other aims in view, to turn them
To the west wind's summer softness.--
[Aside.
(I have said I could, but did not,
For I note the dangerous workings
Of his mind, and thus to magic
Bind him by these hints the stronger.)
Let not my wild fury fright thee,
Nor be at my power astonished,
For I could my own death give me,
If I were by rage so prompted,
And so great that power, the sunlight,
By my science could be blotted.
I, in magic am so mighty,
That I can describe the orbits
Of the stars, for I have travelled
Through the farthest and beyond them.
And in order that this boasting
May not seem to you mere bombast,
Look, if at this very instant
You desire it, this untrodden
Nimrod of rude rocks more savage
Than of Babylon is recorded,
Shall without a leaf being shaken,
Show the most horrific portents.
I am, then, the orphan guest here
Of these ash-trees, of these poplars,
And though what I am, assistance
At thy feet here I ask from thee:
And I wish the good I purchase
To repay thee with the product
Of unnumbered years of study,
Though it now slight effort costs me,
Giving to your wildest wishes
[Aside.
(Here I touch his love,) the fondest
Longings of your heart, whatever
Passion can desire or covet.
If through courtesy or caution
You should not accept my offer,
Let my good intentions pay you,
If from greater acts you stop me.
For the pity that you show me,
Which I thankfully acknowledge,
I will be a friend so faithful,
That henceforth the changeful monster
Of events and acts, called Fortune,
Which 'twixt flattering words and scornful,
Generous now, and now a miser,
Shows a friendly face or hostile,
Neither it nor that laborious
Ever flying, running worker,
Time, the loadstone of the ages,
Nor even heaven itself, heaven proper,
To whose stars the dark world oweth
All its most divine adornment,
Will have power to separate me
From your side a single moment,
Since you here have given me welcome.
And even this is almost nothing
When compared with what my wishes
Hope hereafter to accomplish.
[footnote] *Asonante in 1-3, to the end of the speech.
CYPRIAN. Well to the sea, my thanks are due, that bore
You struggling to the shore,
And led you to this grove,
Where you will quickly prove
The friendly feelings that inflame my breast,
If happily I merit such a guest.
Then let us homeward wend,
For I esteem you now as an old friend.
My guest you are, and so you must not leave me
While my house suits you.
DEMON. Do you then receive me
Wholly as yours?
CYPRIAN [embracing him]. This act doth prove it true,
That seals an eternal bond betwixt us two.--
[Aside.
Oh! if I could win o'er
This man to instruct me in his magic lore!
Since by that art my love might gain
Some solace for its pain;
Or yielding to its mighty laws
My love at length might win my love's sweet cause--
The cause of all my torment, madness, rage.
DEMON [aside]. The working of his mind and love I gauge.
* * * * *
SCENE VIII.
CLARIN and MOSCON enter running from opposite sides.
CYPRIAN and The Demon.
CLARIN. Oh! are you sir, alive?
MOSCON. My friend, do you
Speak civilly for once as something new?
That he's alive requires no demonstration.
CLARIN. I struck this lofty note of admiration,
Thou noble lackey, to express my wonder,
How from this storm of lightning, rain, and thunder,
Without a miracle he could survive.
MOSCON. Will you stop wondering, now you see him alive?
CYPRIAN. These are my servants, sir.--
What brings you here?
MOSCON. Your spleen once more to stir.
DEMON. They have a pleasant humour.
CYPRIAN. Foolish pair,
Their weary wit is oft too hard to bear.
MOSCON. This man, sir, waiting here,
Who is he?
CYPRIAN. He's my guest, so do not fear.
CLARIN. Wherefore have guests at such a time as this?
CYPRIAN [to The Demon]. Your worth is lost on ignorance such as his.
MOSCON. My master's right. Are you, forsooth, his heir?
CLARIN. No; but our new friend there,
Looks like a guest, unless I deceive me, who
Will honour our poor house a year or two.
MOSCON. Why?
CLARIN. When a guest soon means to go away,
Well, he'll not make much smoke in the house, we say.
But this....
MOSCON. Speak out.
CLARIN. Will make, I do not joke..
MOSCON. What?
CLARIN. In the house a deuced deal of smoke.
CYPRIAN. In order to repair
The danger done by the rude sea and air,
Come thou with me.
DEMON. [Aside.] I'm thine, while thou hast breath.
CYPRIAN. I go to prepare thy rest.
DEMON [aside]. And I thy death:--
An entrance having gained
Within his breast, and thus my end obtained;
My rage insatiate now without control
Seeks by another way to win Justina's soul.
[Exit.
CLARIN. Guess, if you can, what I am thinking about.
MOSCON. What is it?
CLARIN. That a new volcano has burst out
In the late storm, there's such a sulphur smell.
MOSCON. It came from the guest, as my good nose could tell.
CLARIN. He uses bad pastilles, then; but I can
Infer the cause.
MOSCON. What is it?
CLARIN. The poor gentleman
Has a slight rash on his skin, a ticklish glow,
And uses sulphur ointment.
MOSCON. Gad! 'tis so.
[Exeunt.
* * * * *
SCENE IX.
THE STREET.
LELIUS and FABIUS.
FABIUS. You return, then, to this street.
LELIUS. Yes; the life that I deplore
I return to seek once more
Where 'twas lost. Ah! guide my feet,
Love, to find it!--
FABIUS. That house there
Is Justina's; come away.
LELIUS. Wherefore, when I will to-day
Once again my love declare.
And as she, I saw it plain,
Trusted some one else at night,
'Tis not strange, in open light,
That I try to soothe my pain.
Leave me, go; for it is best
That I enter here alone.
My rank in Antioch is known,
My father Governor; thus drest
In his robe as 'twere, my strong
Passion listening to no mentor,
I Justina's house will enter
To protest against my wrong.
[Exeunt.
* * * * *
SCENE X.
A HALL IN THE HOUSE OF LYSANDER.
JUSTINA, and afterwards LELIUS.
JUSTINA. Livia.... But a step! who's there?
[LELIUS enters
LELIUS. It is I.
JUSTINA. What novelty,
What extreme temerity,
Thus, my lord, compels you?...
LELIUS. Spare
Your reproaches. Jealous-grown,
I can bear that you reprove.
Pardon me, for with my love
My respect has also flown.
JUSTINA. Why, at such a perilous cost
Have you dared...
LELIUS. Because I'm mad.
JUSTINA. To intrude....
LELIUS. Heart-broken, sad.
JUSTINA. Here....
LELIUS. Because, in truth, I'm lost.
JUSTINA. Nor perceive how scandal views
Such an act as now you do
'Gainst....
LELIUS. Be not so moved, for you
Little honour now can lose.
JUSTINA. Lelius, spare at least my fame.
LELIUS. Ah, Justina, it were best
That this language you addressed
Unto him who nightly came
Down here from this balcony;--
'Tis enough for me to show
All your lightness that I know,
That less coy and cold to me
Your pretended honour prove.
If I am disdained, displaced,
'Tis another suits your taste,
Not that you your honour love.
JUSTINA. Silence, cease, your words withhold.
Who with insult e'er before
Dared to pass my threshold's door?
Are you then so blind and bold,
So audacious, so insane,
As my pure light to eclipse,
Through the libel of your lips,
By chimeras false and vain?--
In my house a man?
LELIUS. 'Tis so.
JUSTINA. From my balcony?
LELIUS. With shame
I repeat it.
JUSTINA. O, my fame,
O'er us twain your Aegis throw.
* * * * *
SCENE XI.
THE SAME.
The Demon appears at the door which is behind JUSTINA.
DEMON [aside]. For the deep design I handle,
For my double plot I come
Raging to this simple home,
Now to work the greatest scandal
Ever seen. Here, brooding o'er him,
This wild lover mad with ire,
I will fan his jealous fire,
I will place myself before him,
Catch his eye, and then as fleeing,
In invisible gloom array me.
[He affects to come in, and being seen by LELIUS muffles himself in
his cloak, and re-enters the inner apartment.
JUSTINA. Man, do you come here to slay me?
LELIUS. No, to die.
JUSTINA. What object seeing
Paralyses thus your senses?
LELIUS. What I see is your untruth.
Tell me now, the wish, forsooth,
Has invented my offences.
From that very chamber there
Came a man, I turned my head,
When he saw my face he fled
Back into the room.
JUSTINA. The air
Must this phantasy display--
This illusion.
LELIUS. Oh, that sight!
JUSTINA. Is it not enough by night,
Lelius, but in open day
Thus fictitious forms to see?
LELIUS. Phantom shape or real lover,
Now the truth I will discover.
[He goes into the room where The Demon had disappeared.
JUSTINA. I no hindrance offer thee,
For my innocence, a way,
At the cost of this permission,
Thus finds out the night's submission
To correct by the light of day.
* * * * *
SCENE XII.
LYSANDER and JUSTINA; LELIUS, within.
LYSANDER. My Justina.
JUSTINA [aside]. Woe is me!
Ah, if here before Lysander*
Lelius from that room comes forth!
[footnote] *Asonante in a-i to the end of Scene XVII.
LYSANDER. My misfortunes, my disasters
Fly to be consoled by thee.
JUSTINA. What can be the grief, the sadness,
That your face betrays so plainly?
LYSANDER. And no wonder, when the pallor
Springs even from the heart. This sobbing
Stops my weak words in their passage.
[LELIUS appears at the door of the apartment.
LELIUS [aside]. I begin now to believe,
Since he is not in this chamber,
Jealousy can cause these spectres.
He, the man I saw, has vanished,
How I know not.
JUSTINA [aside to Lelius]. Come not forth,
Lelius, here before my father.
LELIUS. Convalescent in my sickness
I will wait till he is absent.
[Retires.
JUSTINA. Why this weeping? why this sighing?
What, sir, moves thee, what unmans thee?
LYSANDER. I am moved by a misfortune,
I'm unmanned by a disaster,
Greater far than tender pity
Ever wept,--the dread example
Cruelty has sworn to make
In the innocent blood of martyrs.
To the Governor of this city
Decius Caesar a strict mandate
Has despatched... I can speak no more.
JUSTINA [aside]. What position e'er was harder?
Moved with pity for the Christians
Hither comes to me Lysander
The sad news to tell, not knowing
Lelius to his words may hearken,--
Lelius, the Governor's son.
LYSANDER. So Justina...
JUSTINA. Sir, no farther,
Since you feel it so acutely,
Speak upon this painful matter.
LYSANDER. Let me, for I'll feel some solace
When to thee it is imparted.
In it he commands...
JUSTINA. Proceed not
Further now, when you should rather
Cheat your years with more repose.
LYSANDER. How? when I, to make you partner
In those lively fears whose bodings
Are sufficient to despatch me,
Would inform you of the edict,
The most cruel that the margin
Of the Tiber ever saw
Writ in blood to stain its waters,
Do you stop me? Ah, Justina,
You were wont in another manner
Once to listen to me.
JUSTINA. Sir,
Different were the circumstances.
LELIUS [at the door, aside]. I can hear but indistinctly
Half-formed words and broken accents.
* * * * *
SCENE XIII.
FLORUS enters.--JUSTINA and LYSANDER; LELIUS, peeping at the door
of the inner room.
FLORUS [aside]. Licence has a jealous lover,
Who but enters to unmask here
A pretended purity,
To forego politer manners.
I come here with that intention...
But as she is with her father
I will wait a new occasion.
LYSANDER. Who is there? Some footstep passes.
FLORUS [aside]. Ah! 'tis now impossible
Without speaking to get back here.
Some excuse I'll try to offer:--
I am...
LYSANDER. You here, sir?
FLORUS. Your pardon.
I ask leave, sir, to speak with you
On a most important matter.
JUSTINA [aside]. Oh! take pity on me, fortune,
For these trials are too many.
LYSANDER. Well, sir, speak.
FLORUS [aside, at the door]. Florus in Justina's house
Leaves and enters like a master!--
These are not unfounded jealousies,
These are real and substantial.
LYSANDER. You grow pale, you change your colour.
FLORUS. Do not wonder, be not startled,
For I came to give a warning,
To your life of utmost value,
Of an enemy that you have,
Who your swift destruction planneth.
What I've said is quite sufficient.
LYSANDER [aside]. Florus, doubtless, must have gathered
Somehow that I am a Christian,
And thus comes in kindliest manner
Of my danger to apprise me.--
[Aloud.
Speak, hide nothing in this matter.
* * * * *
SCENE XIV.
LIVIA enters.--
JUSTINA, LYSANDER, and FLORUS; LELIUS at the door of the room.
LIVIA. Sir, the Governor, who is waiting
At the door of the house, commanded
Me to call you to his presence.
FLORUS. Best I wait for his departure:--
[Aside.
(Meantime my excuse I'll think of.)
So 'tis well that you despatch him.
LYSANDER. I appreciate your politeness.
Here I will return instanter.
[Exeunt LYSANDER and LIVIA.
* * * * *
SCENE XV.
JUSTINA and FLORUS; LELIUS at the door.
FLORUS. Are you then that virtuous maiden,
Who, the very breeze that flatters
With its soft and sweet caresses,
You would call rude, bold, unmannered?
How then is it you surrendered
Even the very keys of the casket
Of your honour?
JUSTINA. Hold, hold, Florus,
Do not dare to throw a shadow
On that honour which the sun
After the most strict examen
Has proved bright and pure.
FLORUS. Too late
Comes this idle boast. It happens
That I know to whom you have given
Free access...
JUSTINA. You dare this scandal?--
FLORUS. By a balcony...
JUSTINA. Do not say it.
FLORUS. To your honour.
JUSTINA. Thus will you blast me?
FLORUS. Yes, for hypocritical virtue
Merits something even harsher.
LELIUS [at the door, aside]. Florus was not then the hero
Of the balcony; some more happy
Lover than us twain she welcomes.
JUSTINA. Oh! defame not noble damsels,
Since you noble blood inherit.
FLORUS. Noble damsel, dar'st thou call thee,
When thy very arms received him,
And from thy balcony he departed?
Power subdued thee; from the fact
That the Governor is his father,
Vanity led thee on to show
That in Antioch he commanded...
LELIUS [aside]. Here he speaks of me.
FLORUS. Not seeing
Any graver defect of manner,
Than what in his birth and breeding
Rank may cover with its mantle,
But not so....
[LELIUS enters.
LELIUS. Be silent, Florus,
Nor attack me in my absence;
For of a rival to speak ill,
Is the act but of a dastard.
'Tis to stop this I come forward,
Angry after so many passes
Which my sword has had with thine,
That I have not yet dispatched thee.
JUSTINA. Who, not guilty, ever saw her
In such dangerous straits entangled?
FLORUS. What behind your back was spoken,
I before you will establish,
Truth is truth where'er 'tis uttered.
[They grasp their swords.
JUSTINA. Florus! Lelius! what would you have then.
LELIUS. I would have full satisfaction
Where I heard th'insulting language.
FLORUS. I'll maintain what I have said
Where I said it.
JUSTINA. From so many
Strokes of fortune, free me, Heaven!--
FLORUS. And I'll learn to chastise your rashness.
* * * * *
SCENE XVI.
The Governor enters with LYSANDER and attendants.--JUSTINA, LELIUS,
and FLORUS.
[All who enter]. Hold! stand back!
JUSTINA. Unhappy me!
GOVERNOR. What is this? But empty scabbards,
Naked swords, are quite sufficient
To inform me what has happened.
JUSTINA. What misfortune!
LYSANDER. What affliction!--
LELIUS. Ah, my lord...
GOVERNOR. Enough, no farther.
Lelius, thou a son of mine,
A disturber? Thou a scandal
To all Antioch through my favour?
LELIUS. Think, my lord...
GOVERNOR. Arrest, disarm them,
Take them hence. Make no distinction
On account of blood or rank here.
Let them suffer both alike,
Since in guilt alike they acted.
LELIUS [aside]. I came jealous, and go outraged.
FLORUS [aside]. To my pains new pains are added.
GOVERNOR. In distinct and separate prisons,
And with watchful eyes to guard them,
Place the two.--And you, Lysander,
Is it possible you have tarnished
Such a noble reputation,
Suffering....
LYSANDER. No; let not these dazzling
False appearances mislead you,
For Justina in what happened
Was quite blameless.
GOVERNOR. In her house here,
Would you have her live regardless
Of the fact that they were young,
And that she was fair; My anger
I restrain, lest people say,
I, an interested party,
Sentence passed as partial judge.--
But of you who caused this quarrel,
Now that maiden shame has left you,
Well I know that you will glad me
With the occasion I desire,
Of exposing, of unmasking,
In the light of actual vices,
The false virtuous part you've acted.
[Exeunt The Governor and his attendants;
LELIUS and FLORUS follow as prisoners.
* * * * *
SCENE XVII.
JUSTINA and LYSANDER.
JUSTINA. I reply but with my tears.
LYSANDER. Tears as vain as they are tardy.
What an act was mine, Justina,
When to thee my lips imparted
Who thou art! Oh, would I never
Told thee, that upon the margin
Of a rivulet in this forest,
A dead mother's womb here cast thee!
JUSTINA. I....
LYSANDER. Do not attempt excuses.
JUSTINA. Heaven will make them, then, hereafter
LYSANDER. When too late, perhaps.
JUSTINA. No limit
Can be late here while life lasteth.
LYSANDER. For the punishment of crimes.
JUSTINA. Injured truth to re-establish.
LYSANDER. I, from what I have seen, condemn thee.
JUSTINA. I thee, from what thou knowest not, rather.
LYSANDER. Leave me; I go forth to die
Where my grief will soon dispatch me.
JUSTINA. At thy feet I would lose my life;
But do not reject me, father.
[Exeunt.
* * * * *
SCENE XVIII.
A HALL IN CYPRIAN'S HOUSE.
At the end is an open gallery, through which is seen the country.
CYPRIAN, the Demon, MOSCON, and CLARIN.
DEMON. Since the hour that I have been
In your house a guest, you ne'er
Show a gay and cheerful air.
Sadness in your face is seen.
It is wrong your cure to shun,
Seeking to mislead mine eyes,
Since I would unsphere the skies,
Shake the stars, and shroud the sun,
For the least desire you feel
That more pleasantly you might live.
CYPRIAN. Magic has no power to give
The impossible I conceal,
Though the misery I betray.
DEMON. Come, confess the longed-for bliss.
CYPRIAN. I love a woman.
DEMON. And is this
The impossible that you say?
CYPRIAN. If you knew her, you'd agree.
DEMON. Well, describe her, I'm resigned;
Though I can't but smile to find
What a coward you must be.
CYPRIAN. The fair cradle of the skies,
Where the infant sun reposes,
Ere he rises, decked with roses,
Robed in snow, to dry heaven's eyes.
The green prison-bud that tries
To restrain the conscious rose,
When the crimson captive knows
April treads its gardens near,
Turning dawn's half frozen tear
To a smile where sunshine glows.
The sweet streamlet gliding by,
Though it scarcely dares to breathe
Softest murmurs through its teeth,
From the frosts that on it lie.
The bright pink, in its small sky
Shining like a coral star.
The blithe bird that flies afar,
Drest in shifting shades and blooms--
Soaring cithern of plumes
Harping high o'er heaven's blue bar.
The white rock that cheats the sun
When it tries to melt it down,
What it melts is but the crown
Which from winter's snow it won.
The green bay that will not shun,
Though the heavens are all aglow,
For its feet a bath of snow,--
Green Narcissus of the brook,
Fearless leaning o'er to look,
Though the stream runs chill below
In a word, the crimson dawn,
Sun, mead, streamlet, rosebud, May
Bird that sings his amorous lay,
April's laugh that gems the lawn,
Pink that sips the dews up-drawn,
Rock that stands in storm and shine,
Bay-tree that delights to twine
Round its fadeless leaves the sun,
All are parts which met in one
Form this woman most divine.
For myself, in blind unrest,
(Guess my madness if you can)
I, to seem another man,
In these courtly robes am drest,
Studious calm I now detest,
Fame no longer fires my mind,
Passion reigns where thought refined,
I my firmness fling to tears,
Courage I resign to fears,
And my hopes I give the wind.
I have said, and so will do,
That to some infernal sprite
I would offer with delight
(And the pledge I now renew)
Even my soul for her I woo.
But my offer is in vain,
Hell rejects it with disdain,
For my soul, it may allege,
Is a disproportionate pledge
For the interest I would gain.
DEMON. Is this, then your boasted courage,
In the footsteps of dejected*
Swains to follow, who grow timid
When their first assault's rejected?
Are examples then so distant
Of fair ladies who surrender
All their vanities to entreaties,
All their pride to fond addresses?
Would you make your breast the prison
Of your love, your arms her fetters?
[footnote] *Asonante in e-e to the end of the Act.
CYPRIAN. Can you doubt it?
DEMON. Then command them
To retire, those two, your servants,
So that we remain here only.
CYPRIAN. Go: both leave me for the present.
MOSCON. I obey.
[Exit.
CLARIN. And I as well.--
[Aside, concealing himself.
Such a guest must be the devil.
CYPRIAN. They are gone.
DEMON [aside]. That Clarin's hiding,
Is to me of small concernment.
CYPRIAN. What more wish you now?
DEMON. First fasten
Well this door.
CYPRIAN. Yes; none can enter.
DEMON. For the possession of this woman,
With your lips you have asserted
You would give your soul.
CYPRIAN. 'Tis so.
DEMON. Then the contract is accepted.
CYPRIAN. What do you say?
DEMON. That I accept it.
CYPRIAN. How?
DEMON. So much have I effected
By my science, that I will teach you
How by it to get possession
Of the woman that you worship;
For I (though so wise and learned)
Have no other means to win her.
Let us now in writing settle
What we have resolved between us.
CYPRIAN. Do you wish by new pretences
To prolong the pains I suffer?
In my hand is what I tender,
But in yours is not the offer
That you make me; no, for never
Conjurations or enchantments
Can free will control or fetter.
DEMON. Give me, on the terms you spoke of,
Your signed bond.
CLARIN. [peeping]. The deuce! This fellow
Is no fool, I see. No greenhorn
In his business is this devil.
I give him my bond! No, truly,
Though my lodgings wanted a tenant
For the space of twenty ages,
I wouldn't do it.
CYPRIAN. Sir, much jesting
May with merry friends be pastime,
Not with those who are dejected.
DEMON. I, in proof of what I am able
To effect, will now present you
With an example, though it faintly
Shows the power my art possesses.
From this gallery what is seen?
CYPRIAN. Much of sky, and much of meadow,
Wood, a rivulet, and a mountain.
DEMON. Which to you doth seem most pleasant?
CYPRIAN. The proud mountain, for in it
Is my adored one represented.
DEMON. Proud competitor of time,
Rival of the years for ever,
Who as king of fields and plains
Crown'st thee with the cloud and tempest,
Move thyself, change earth and air;
Look, see who I am that tell thee.--
And, look thou, too, since a mountain
I can move, thou mayest a maiden.
[The mountain moves from one side to the other in the perspective of
the theatre.
CYPRIAN. Never saw I such a wonder!
Ne'er a sight of so much terror!
CLARIN [peeping]. With the fright and with the fear,
I enjoy a twofold tremble.
CYPRIAN. Mighty mountain bird that fliest,
Trees for wings replacing feathers,
Boat, whose rocks supply the tackle,
As thou furrowest through the zephyr,
To thy centre back return thee,
And so end this fear, this terror.
[The mountain returns to its original position.
DEMON. If one proof is not sufficient,
I will give you then a second.
Do you wish to see the woman
You adore?
CYPRIAN. Yes.
DEMON. Then, thy entrails
Ope, thou monster, to whose being
The four elements are servants.
Show to us the perfect beauty
That thou hidest in thy centre.
[A rock opens and JUSTINA is seen sleeping.
Is this she whom you adore?
CYPRIAN. Whom I idolize beyond measure.
DEMON. But since I have power to give her,
I can take her too, remember.
CYPRIAN. Now impossible dream of mine,
Now thy arms will be the centre
Of my love, thy lips the sun,
Burning, brimming as with nectar.
DEMON. Stay; for till the word you gave me
Is affirmed, and well attested,
You can touch her not.
[CYPRIAN rushes towards the rock, which closes.
CYPRIAN. Oh, stay
Cloud that hides the most resplendent
Sun, that on my bliss e'er dawned!--
But 'tis air my void arm presses.--
I believe your art, acknowledge
Now I am your slave for ever.
What do you wish I do for thee?
What do you ask?
DEMON. To be protected
By your signature here written
In your blood, at the foot of a letter.
CLARIN [peeping]. Oh! I'd give my soul that I
To stay here had not been tempted.
CYPRIAN. For my pen I use this dagger,
Paper let this white cloth serve for,
And the ink wherewith I write it,
Be the blood my arm presents me.
[He writes with the point of a dagger upon a piece of linen, having
drawn blood from one of his arms.
CYPRIAN [Aside]. Oh! I freeze with fear, with horror!
I, great Cyprian, say expressly
I will give my immortal soul,
(Oh! what lethargy, what frenzy!)
Unto him whose art will teach me
(What confusion! what strange terror!)
How I may of fair Justina,
Haughty mistress mine, possess me.
I have signed it with my name.
DEMON [aside]. Now to my deceits is rendered
Valid homage, when such reason,
When discourse like his must tremble
Even when my help is sought for.--
Have you written?
CYPRIAN. And signed the letter.
DEMON. Then the sun you adore is thine.
CYPRIAN. Thine too, for the years eternal,
Is the soul I offer thee.
DEMON. Soul for soul I pay my debtors,
Then for thine I give to thee
Thy Justina's
CYPRIAN. In what term then,
Think you you can teach to me
All your magic art?
DEMON. A twelvemonth;
But on this condition....
CYPRIAN. Speak.
DEMON. That within a cavern buried,
Without any other study,
We may live there both together,
In our service having no one
For us two but this attendant,
[Drags out CLARIN.
Who being curious hid him here;--
By securing thus his person
That our secret is well kept,
We, I think, may be quite certain.
CLARIN [aside]. Oh, that I had never waited!
How does it happen though, so many
Neighbours prone to pry, as I am,
Are not caught thus by the devil?
CYPRIAN. So far well. My love, my genius
Have this happy end effected:
First Justina will be mine,
Then by my new lights, new learning,
I will wake the world's surprise.
DEMON. I have gained what I intended.
CLARIN. I not so.
DEMON. You come with us.--
[Aside.
O'er my great foe I've got the better.
CYPRIAN. Ah, how happy my desires,
If I reach to such possession!--
DEMON [aside]. Never will my envy rest
Till I gain both souls to serve me.--
Let us go, and in the deepest
Cavern this wild world presenteth
You to-day will learn in magic
Your first lesson.
CYPRIAN. Let us enter,
For my mind with such a master,
For my love with such incentive,
Will the sorcerer Cyprian's name
Live before the world for ever.
ACT THE THIRD.
SCENE I.
A WOOD; AT THE EXTREMITY A GROTTO.
CYPRIAN.
CYPRIAN. Ungrateful beauty mine,
At length the day, the happy day doth shine--
My hope's remotest range,
The limits of my love and of thy change,
Since I to-day will gain
At last my triumph over thy disdain.
This lofty mountain nigh,
Raised to the star-lit palace of the sky,
And this dark cavern's gloom,
Of two that live, so long the dismal tomb,
Are the rough school wherein
From magic art its mystic lore I win,
And such perfection reach
That I can now my mighty master teach.
Seeing, that on this day, since I came here
The sun completes its course from sphere to sphere,
I from my prison cell come forth to view
What in the light I now have power to do.
Ye skies of cloudless day
List to my magic spell-words and obey;
Swift zephyrs that rejoice
In heaven's warm light, stand still and hear my voice;
Stupendous mountain rock
Shake at my words as at an earthquake shock;
Ye trees in rough bark drest
Be frightened at the groanings of my breast;
Ye flowers so fair and frail
Faint at the echoing terror of my wail;
Ye sweet melodious birds
Hush all your songs before my awful words;
Ye cruel beasts of prey
See the first fruits of my long toil to-day;
For blinded, dazzled, dazed,
Confused, disturbed, astonished and amazed,
Ye skies and zephyrs, rocks, and trees, and flowers,
And birds, and beasts, behold my magic powers,
And thus to all make plain
Cyprian's infernal study is not vain.
* * * * *
SCENE II.
The Demon and CYPRIAN.
DEMON. Cyprian!
CYPRIAN. Wise friend and master still!
DEMON. Why, how is this, that using your free-will
More than my precept meant,
Say for what end, what object, what intent,
Through ignorance or boldness can it be,
You thus come forth the sun's bright face to see?
CYPRIAN. Seeing that now my spell
Can fill with fear, with horror even hell,
Since I, with so much care
Have studied magic and its depths laid bare,
So that yourself can scarcely tell
Whether 'tis I or you that most excel,
Seeing that now there is no place or part
That I with study, diligence and art,
have not attained,
Since necromancy's secret I have gained,
That art whose lines of gloom
Can ope to me the dark funereal tomb,
And bring before mine eyes
Each corpse that in it lies,
Regaining them, as 'twere by a new birth
From the hard avarice of the grasping earth.
The pale ghosts, one and all,
Rise and respond my call;--
And seeing that at length the sun
My goal of life had won,
Since from its innate force
Swift-speeding on its course,
Climbing the heavens each day,
It turns as 'twere reluctantly away,
And with a natural fear
Completes to-day the lifetime of a year,
I wish to attain the scope
To last of all my dreams, of all my hope.
To-day the rare, the beautiful, the divine
Justina will be mine,
Here summoned by my charms,
Here lured by love she'll come unto my arms,
For you from me no longer can require
Postponement of my hope's, my heart's desire.
DEMON. Nor do I wish to do it, no,
Since thus so earnestly you wish it so.
Now trace upon the ground
Mute mystic symbols, and the deep profound
Of air, with powerful incantations move
Obedient to your hope and to your love.
CYPRIAN. For that I will retire;
You soon shall see the heaven and earth admire.
[Exit.
DEMON. I give you leave to go,
Because our science being the same, I know
That the abyss of hell
Obedient to your spell
Will yield through me, this way,
The fair Justina to your arms to-day:
For, though my mighty power
Cannot enslave free-will even for an hour,
It may present
The outward show of rapture and content,
Suggesting thoughts impure:--
If force I cannot use, at least I lure.
* * * * *
SCENE III.
CLARIN and The Demon.
CLARIN. Ungrateful fair, who still my heart doth hold,
Not burning Libya sure, but Livia cold,
The time is come to show
Whether in love you have been true or no,
Whether, since I within this cave was placed,
Not chased by me you have yourself been chaste;
For I have studied here
At second hand some magic for a year,
Just to find out (alack! I can't but wince)
Whether with Moscon you have wronged me since:--
Ye watery skies (some people call them pure)
List to my conjurations I conjure,
Mountains....
DEMON. How, Clarin?
CLARIN. Oh! my master wise!
By the concomitance of my hands and eyes,
I've learned some magic, and would know by it
If Livia, that ungrateful little chit,
Has played me false since I have been away,
Embracing that rogue Moscon on my day.
DEMON. Have done with these buffooneries: leave me, go.
And 'mid these intricate rocks whose paths you know,
Assist your master, who will let you see
(If you would witness such a prodigy)
The end of all his woe.
I wish to be alone.
CLARIN. And I not so.
I now perceive
Why to use magic I have not your leave,
The fault was mine, neglecting to attest
My bond, and sign it with the blood of my breast.--
[He takes out a soiled pocket-handkerchief.
Upon this linen handkerchief
(None cleaner he can have who cries for grief)
I'll sign it now, the method I propose
Is but to give myself a box on the nose,
For there is little harm
Whether the blood is drawn from nose or arm.
[He writes with his finger on the handkerchief,
after having drawn some blood.
I, the great Clarin, say, if I can level
Pert Livia's cruel pride, whom I give to the devil....
DEMON. Leave me, I say again,
Go seek your master and with him remain.
CLARIN. Yes, I will do so, don't get angry though.
The reason you reject my bond I know:
'Tis this, because you see,
Do what I will that you are sure of me.
* * * * *
SCENE IV.
The Demon.
DEMON. Abyss of hell prepare!
Thyself the region of thine own despair.--
From out each dungeon's dark recess
Let loose the spirits of voluptuousness,
To rain and o'erthrow
Justina's virgin fabric pure as snow.
A thousand filthy phantoms with thee brought
So people her chaste thought
That all her maiden fancies may be filled
With their deceits; let sweetest notes be trilled
From every tuneful grove,
And all, birds, plants, and flowers, provoke to love.
Let nothing meet her eyes
But spoils of love's delicious victories,
Let nothing meet her ears
But languid sighs that listening passion hears:
That thus unguarded by the faith, and weak,
She here may Cyprian seek
Invoked by his strong spell,
And by my blinding spirit lured as well.
Begin, in silence I will here remain
Unseen, that you may now begin the strain.
[Exit.
* * * * *
SCENE V.
JUSTINA; music within. [They sing within.]
A VOICE. What is the glory far above,
All else that life can give?
CHORUS OF VARIOUS VOICES. Love love.
A VOICE. No creature lives on which love's flame
Has not impressed its burning seal,
The man feels more who love doth feel
Than when Life's breath first warmed his frame.
Love owns one universal claim,--
To Love, it only needs To Be,--
Whether a bird, a flower, a tree:
Then the chief glory, far above
All else in life must be....
CHORUS [within]. Love, love.
JUSTINA [alarmed and restless]. Fancy, flatter that thou art,
Though thou should'st be sad to-day,
When did I to thee impart,
In this strange and sudden way,
Licence to afflict my heart?
What thus makes my pulses move?
What strange fire is this I prove
Which each moment doth increase?
Ah! this pain that ends my peace,
This sweet unrest, ah, what?
CHORUS. Love, love.
JUSTINA [more composed]. 'Tis that enamoured nightingale
Who thus gives me the reply:--
To his partner in the vale
Listening on a bough hard by
Warbling thus his tuneful wail.
Cease, sweet nightingale, nor show
By thy softly witching strain
Trilling forth thy bliss and woe,
How a man might feel love's pain,
When a bird can feel his so.
No: it was that wanton vine
That in fond pursuit has sought
The tall tree it doth entwine,
Till the green weight it hath brought
Makes the noble trunk decline.
Green entwining boughs that hold
What you love in your embrace,
Make my fancy not too bold:--
Ah, if boughs thus interlace,
How would clasping arms infold!--
And if not the vine, 'twill be
That bright sunflower which we see
Turning with its tearful eyes
To its sun-god in the skies,
Whatsoe'er his movements be.
Flower thy watch no longer keep,
Drooping leaflets fold in sleep,
For the fond thought reappears,
Ah, if leaves can shed such tears,
What are those that eyes can weep!
Cease then, lyrist of the grove,
Leafy vine, unclasp thy arms,
Fickle flower, no longer move,
And declare, these poisoned charms
That you use, what yields?
CHORUS [within]. Love, love.
JUSTINA. Love! it cannot be. Its chain
Have I ever worn for man?
No, the fond deceit is vain.
All received a like disdain,
Lelius, Florus, Cyprian.
Lelius did I not despise?
Florus did I not detest?
Cyprian, the good and wise,
[She pauses at Cyprian's name and
resumes for a time her unquiet manner.
Spurn with such a haughty breast,
That he vanished from my eyes,
As if frightened by their ire?--
Where he went I do not know.
But save this, the faintest fire
Love e'er lit, ne'er dared to glow
In the depths of my desire.
Yes, for since I said that he
Should submit without appeal
Never more my face to see,
Ah, I know and what I feel!--
[She grows calmer.
Pity it must surely be,
That a man so widely known
Should through love of me be lost,
When he pays at such a cost
For the preference he has shown.
[She becomes troubled again.
Were it pity though, 'tis true,
The same pity I should give
Lelius and to Florus too,
Who in separate dungeons live,
Ah! for daring me to woo.
[She grows calmer.
But my thoughts, ye mutinous crew,
If my pity is enough
It should not be clogged by you.
Still your promptings press me so,
That I feel in my despair,
Where he is, if I could know,
I to seek him now would go.
* * * * *
SCENE VI.
The Demon and JUSTINA.
DEMON. Come, and I will tell thee where.
JUSTINA. Who art thou who has procured
Entrance to this lone retreat,
Though the entrance is secured?
Or, my senses being obscured,
Art thou but delusion's cheat?
DEMON. No, not so; but having known
How this passion pressed thee so,
I have sought thee here alone,
Having promised thee to show
Whither Cyprian has flown.
JUSTINA. Then thou'lt reach not thy intent;
For this passion, this strange pain,
Which my thought doth so torment,
Though my fancy it may gain,
It will never my consent.
DEMON. But in thought to enter in
Shows that half the deed is done;
Since accomplished is the sin:--
Stop not halfway, ere is won
What the wish desired to win.
JUSTINA. Even in this desponding hour,
Though to think may taint the flower,
Thy suggestion comes to nought,--
In my power is not my thought
But my act is in my power.
I can follow to the brink,
Free to pause or to pursue,
Move my foot, or backward shrink,
For it is one thing to do,
And another thing to think.
DEMON. If a stronger power than thine,
Drawn from a profounder source,
With thine own desires combine,
How resist the double force
Which with force thy steps incline?
JUSTINA. I will trust a safer spell:--
My free will suffices me.
DEMON. But my power will it excel.
JUSTINA. Then the will no more were free
If a force could it compel.
DEMON. Come where every bliss thou'lt meet.
[Attempts to draw her with him, but cannot move her.
JUSTINA. Ah! the bliss were bought too dear.
DEMON. It is peace, serene and sweet.
JUSTINA. 'Tis a slavery most severe.
DEMON. Life, 'tis joy.
JUSTINA. 'Tis death, deceit.
DEMON. Thy defence, what can it be,
If my power thus forces thee?
[Drags her with more force.
JUSTINA. In my God it doth consist.
DEMON. By persisting to resist,
[Releases her.
Woman, thou has conquered me.
Thy defence to God is due,
And my counsel is disdained;
Yes, but raging I'll renew
My attempt and have thee feigned,
If I cannot have thee true.
To a spirit I will give
Shape like thine though fugitive,
It will counterfeit thy form,
As with seeming life be warm,
And in it disgraced thou'lt live.
Thus two triumphs at one time
I am sure to win by this,
Be thy virtue so sublime,
Since through an ideal bliss
I will consummate a crime.
[Exit.
* * * * *
SCENE VII.
JUSTINA.
JUSTINA. 'Gainst the clouds that round me lower
I appeal to heaven's high power;
Let this spectre of my fame--
As before the wind the flame--
As before the frost the flower,
Vanish, die.... But woe is me!
Who is here to heed my moan?
Was there not a man with me?
Yes. But no: I am alone:
No. But yes: for I could see.
Where so quickly could he fly?
Was he born of my unrest?
Oh! my danger's manifest...
Father! friend! Lysander! I
Call....
* * * * *
SCENE VIII.
LYSANDER and LIVIA enter from opposite doors.--JUSTINA.
LYSANDER. My child?
LIVIA. What means this cry?
JUSTINA. Saw you not a man (ah, me!)
Who but left me instantly?
I can scarce express my thought.
LYSANDER. A man here?
JUSTINA. You saw him not?
LIVIA. No, senora.
JUSTINA. I could see.
LYSANDER. Saw a man here? That is hard,
When the place was locked and barred.
LIVIA [aside]. Moscon sure she must have seen,
Whom I have contrived to screen
In my changer.
LYSANDER. I regard
What you saw but as the play
Of your fancy and your fear.
Melancholy surely may
Have, the man that you saw here,
Formed from atoms of the day.
LIVIA. Yes, I think my master's right.
JUSTINA. No, 'twas no defect of sight,
No illusion: since my heart,--
Ah! too well I feel the smart--
Has been broken by the fright.
Some strange witchery of my will
Must have been effected here.
And with such consummate skill,
That if God had not been near
I might have pursued my ill.
He who at such timely hour
Helped me to resist the power
Of this fearful violence,
Will my humble innocence
Guard, whatever dangers lower.--
Livia, my cloak: whene'er
[Exit LIVIA.
Overwhelming griefs oppress,
I to holy church repair,
Where we secretly confess
The true faith.
[LIVIA returns with the cloak, which she places on JUSTINA.
LIVIA. 'Tis this you wear.
JUSTINA. There perchance I may appease
This strange fire that burns me so.
LYSANDER. I desire with thee to go.
LIVIA [aside]. I will breathe much more at ease
When they're out of the house, I know.
JUSTINA. Since I wholly trust to thee
Heaven, thy hold to me afford.
Save me....
LYSANDER. Come: so it may be.
JUSTINA. Since the cause is thine, O Lord!
Oh, defend Thyself and me!
[Exeunt JUSTINA and LYSANDER.
* * * * *
SCENE IX.
MOSCON and LIVIA.
MOSCON. Have they gone?
LIVIA. They're gone: all right.
MOSCON. Why, I'm almost dead with fright.
LIVIA. Were you of your sense bereft
When but now my room you left
And appeared before her sight?
MOSCON. Left your room? Be seen by her?
Why, I swear it, Livia dear,
Not one moment did I stir.
LIVIA. Who then was it she saw here?
MOSCON. Well, the devil, as I infer.
How know I? But then do not
Take it so to heart, my soul.
LIVIA. Oh! that's not the cause.
[She weeps.
MOSCON. Then what?
LIVIA. Such a question, when the whole
Of a day it was his lot
With me here locked up to stay?
For his comrade far away
Must I not a tear then shed,
Though I take this day instead,
Having wept not yesterday?
Would I have him think of me
As a woman who could be
So forgetful and so frail,
As for half a year to fail
In what we did both agree?
MOSCON. Half a year? It is above
One whole year since he went away.
LIVIA. Quite an error, as I'll prove.
Mind, I cannot count a day
When I Clarin could not love.
This being so, if I to thee
Gave up half the year (ah me!),
I would give a false amount
To place all to his account.
MOSCON. Ah, ungrateful! can it be
When my heart on thee depends
For its peace, that thine attends
To such trifles?
LIVIA. Moscon, yes,
For I find, I must confess,
Short accounts make longest friends.
MOSCON. Such being then thy constancy,
Livia, I must say good-bye,
Till to-morrow. Ah! if he
Is thy two-day fever, I
Hope he's not thy syncope.
LIVIA. Well, my friend, from this you know
I no malice bear.
MOSCON. Just so.
LIVIA. See me then no more to-day,
But to-morrow, sir, you may:
I'll not need to send. Heigho!
[Exeunt.
* * * * *
SCENE X.
A WOOD.
CYPRIAN, as frightened; CLARIN, stealthily after him.
CYPRIAN. Doubtless something must have happened
'Mong the stars; imperial clusters,*
Since I find their influences
To my wishes so repugnant.
Up from the profound abysses
Some dark caveat must be uttered,
Which prohibits the obedience
Which they owe me as my subjects.
I, a thousand times, with spell-words
Made the winds of heaven to shudder,
I, a thousand times, the bosom
Of the earth with symbols furrowed,
Yet mine eyes have not been gladdened
By the human sun refulgent
That I seek, nor in mine arms
Hold that human heaven.
[footnote] *'Asonante' in 'u-e' to the end of Scene XV.
CLARIN. What wonder?
When a thousand times have I
Scraped the earth as if for nuggets,
When a thousand times the wind
By my screeching was perturbed,
And yet Livia was oblivious.
CYPRIAN. Once again then I am humbled
To invoke her thus. Oh, listen,
Beautiful Justina....
* * * * *
SCENE XI.
A phantom Figure of JUSTINA appears.
The Figure, CYPRIAN, and CLARIN.
FIGURE. Summoned,
As I wander through these mountains,
I obey a call so urgent.
What, then, wouldst thou? what, then, wouldst thou,
Cyprian, with me?
CYPRIAN. Oh, I shudder!
FIGURE. And since now....
CYPRIAN. I am astonished!
FIGURE. I have come....
CYPRIAN. What thus disturbs me?
FIGURE. To this place....
CYPRIAN. What makes me tremble?
FIGURE. Where....
CYPRIAN. Oh! whence this doubt that numbs me?
FIGURE. Love doth call me....
CYPRIAN. Why, this terror?
FIGURE. And the powerful spell thou workest
Thus complied with, to this forest's
Deepest depths I fly to shun thee.
[Exit, covering her face with the cloak.
CYPRIAN. Listen, hear me, stay, Justina!
But why linger spell-bound, stunned here?
I'll pursue her, and this forest,
Whither by my spells conducted
She has flown, will be the leafy
Theatre, the rude-constructed
Bride-bed of the strangest bridal
Heaven e'er witnessed.
[Exit.
* * * * *
SCENE XII.
CLARIN. Stop: Renuncio
Bride like this who smells of smoke
Stronger than a blacksmith's furnace.
But perhaps the incantation,
Being so extremely sudden,
Caught her leaning o'er the lye-tub,
If not cooking tripe for supper.
No. Thus cloaked and in a kitchen!
That excuse won't do: another
Let me try. (I have it now,
For an honourable woman
Never smells then any sweeter,)
She with fright must have been flustered.--
He has overtaken her now,
And from that rude vale uncultured,
Struggling in closed clasping arms,
(For I think when lovers struggle,
Open arms are not the weapon
Even for the lustiest lover,)
To this very spot they come:
I will watch them under cover,
For I wish for once to witness
How young women are abducted.
[Conceals himself.
* * * * *
SCENE XIII.
CYPRIAN embracing the Figure of JUSTINA, which he carries in his arms.
CYPRIAN. Now, O beautiful Justina,
In this sweet and secret covert,
Where no beam of sun can enter,
Nor the breeze of heaven blow roughly,
Now the trophy of thy beauty
Makes my magic toils triumphant,
For here folding thee, no longer
Have I need to fear disturbance.
Fair Justina, thou hast cost me
Even my soul. But in my judgment,
Since the gain has been so glorious,
Not so dear has been the purchase.
Oh! unveil thyself, fair goddess,
Not in the clouds obscure and murky,
Not in vapours hide the sun,
Show its golden rays refulgent.
[He draws aside the cloak and discovers a skeleton.
But, O woe! what's this I see!
Is it a cold corse, mute, pulseless,
That within its arms expects me?
Who, in one brief moment's compass,
Could upon these faded features,
Pallid, motionless, and shrunken,
Have extinguished the bright beauties
Of the blush rose and the purple?
THE SKELETON. Cyprian, such are all the glories
Of the world that you so covet.
[The Skeleton disappears.
CLARIN rushes in frightened, and embraces CYPRIAN.
* * * * *
SCENE XIV.
CLARIN and CYPRIAN.
CLARIN. Fear, for any one who wants it,
Wholesale or retail I'll furnish.
CYPRIAN. Stay! funereal shadow, stay!
Now for other ends I urge thee.
CLARIN. I am a funereal body:--
Don't you see it by my bulk here?
CYPRIAN. Ah! who are you?
CLARIN. Who I am, sir,
Or am not, myself doth puzzle.
CYPRIAN. Did you in the air's void spaces,
Or earth's caverns yawning under,
See an icy corse here vanish,
See to dust and ashes turning
All the freshness and the beauty
That it promised in its coming?
CLARIN. Do you take me, sir, for one
Of those pitiful poor lurkers
Men call spies?
CYPRIAN. What could it be?
CLARIN. And not be, in such a hurry.
CYPRIAN. Let us seek it.
CLARIN. Let's not seek it.
CYPRIAN. I must sift this matter further.
CLARIN. I would rather not.
* * * * *
SCENE XV.
The Demon, CYPRIAN, and CLARIN.
DEMON [aside]. Just heavens,
If my nature, in conjunction,
Once possessed both grace and science,
When 'mongst angels I was numbered,
Grace alone is what I've lost,
Science no. Then why unjustly,
If 'tis so, deprive my science
Of its proper power and function?
CYPRIAN. Lucifer, wise master mine.
CLARIN. Pray don't call him: for he'll come here
In another corse, I warrant.
DEMON. Speak, what would you?
CYPRIAN. The annulling,
The redemption of those pledges,
At whose very thought I shudder.
CLARIN. As I don't redeem my pledges,
I'll slip off here through the bushes.
[Exit.
* * * * *
SCENE XVI.
CYPRIAN and The Demon.
CYPRIAN. Scarcely o'er earth's wounded bosom
Had I the true spell-word uttered,
When in the ensuing action,
She, of all my dreams the subject,
My adored, divine Justina....
But why take the useless trouble,
That to tell you know already?
I embraced her, would unmuffle
Her fair face, when (woe is me!)
In her beauty I discovered
A gaunt skeleton, a statue,
A pale image, a sepulchral
Show of death, which in these measured
Words thus spoke (even yet I shudder),
"Cyprian, such are all the glories
Of the world that you so covet."--
To assert, that on thy magic
As expressed by me, the burden
Of the fault should lie, is vain,
For I, point by point, so worked it,
That of all its silent symbols
There was not a line but somewhere
Had its place, of all its spell-words
Not one word that was not uttered.
Then, 'tis plain thou has deceived me,
For though acting as instructed,
I but found an empty phantom
Where I sought a blissful substance.
DEMON. Cyprian, this defect from thee,
Nor from me, in truth, resulted:
Not from thee, because the magic
Thou didst exercise with subtle
Thought and skill; and not from me,
For I could not teach thee further.
From a higher cause, believe me,
Came this injury thou hast suffered.
But be not cast down: for I,
Who in tranquil rest would lull thee,
Will to thee unite Justina,
By a different way and juster.
CYPRIAN. That is not my intention now.
For this strange event has struck me
With such terror and confusion,
That thy ways I do not covet.
And since thou has not complied with
The conditions, the assumptions
Of my love, I only ask thee,
Now that from thy face I'm rushing,
As the contract is annulled,
That my bond thou shouldst return me.
DEMON. What I promised was to teach thee,
By a course of secret study,
How to draw to thee Justina
By the potent power impulsive
Of thy words: and since the wind
Here Justina hath conducted,
I have then fulfilled my contract,
I have kept my plighted word then.
CYPRIAN. What was offered to my love
Was that I should surely pluck here
The sweet fruit whose seeds my hope
Had to these wild wastes entrusted.
DEMON. Cyprian, I was only bound
Her to bring here.
CYPRIAN. A mere shuffle:
To my arms you swore to give her.
DEMON. In thy arms I saw her struggle.
CYPRIAN. 'Twas a phantom.
DEMON. 'Twas a portent.
CYPRIAN. Worked by whom?
DEMON. By one who worked it
To protect her.
CYPRIAN. Who was he?
DEMON [trembling]. I don't wish the name to utter.
CYPRIAN. I will turn my magic science
'Gainst thyself. By its compulsion
Speak, inform me who he is.
DEMON. Well, a god who takes this trouble
For Justina.
CYPRIAN. What's one God,
When of gods there's such a number?
DEMON. All their power in Him is centred.
CYPRIAN. Then One only, sole and sovereign,
Must He be, whose single will
Their united wills outworketh.
DEMON. I know nothing, I know nothing.
CYPRIAN. I renounce then with my utmost
Power the pact that I made with thee;
What compelled Him (this I urge thee
In that God's great name) to guard her?
DEMON [after having struggled ineffectually not to say it]. To
preserve her pure, unsullied.
CYPRIAN. Then He is the sovereign goodness
Since a wrong He will not suffer.
But if she remained here hidden
Say what loss would have resulted?
DEMON. Loss of honour, if the secret
Leaked out to the gossiping vulgar.
CYPRIAN. Then that God must be all sight,
Since he could foresee these trouble.
But, why could not thy enchantment
Be as potent and consummate?
DEMON. Ah! His power is ampler, fuller.
CYPRIAN. Then that God must be all hands,
Since whate'er He wills He worketh.
Tell me then who is that God,
Whom to-day I have discovered
The supreme of good to be,
The Creator, the Annuller,
The Omniscient, the All-seeing,
Whom I've sought for years unnumbered?
DEMON. Him I know not.
CYPRIAN. Speak, who is He?
DEMON. As I speak it, how I shudder!
He--He is the God of the Christians.
CYPRIAN. Say what moved Him to obstruct me
In my wish?
DEMON. Her Christian faith.
CYPRIAN. Does He guard so those who love Him?
DEMON. Yes; but now too late, too late,
Dost thou hope to gain His succour,
Since, in being my slave, thou canst not
Claim the privilege of His subject.
CYPRIAN. I thy slave?
DEMON. In my possession
Is thy signature.
CYPRIAN. I'll struggle
To regain it from thee, since
'Twas conditional at the utmost.
I don't doubt I will get it.
DEMON. How?
CYPRIAN. In this way.
[He draws his sword, strikes at The Demon, but cannot touch him.
DEMON. Although the lunges
Of thy naked sword against me
Are well aimed, thou hast not struck me,
Fierce as were thy blows. And now,
Even in more despair to plunge thee,
I would have thee learn at least
That the Devil is thy instructor.
CYPRIAN. What do you say?
DEMON. That I am he.
CYPRIAN. Oh! to hear thee how I shudder!--
DEMON. Not alone a slave art thou,
But MY slave; be that thy comfort.
CYPRIAN. I the slave of the Devil! I
Own a master so unworthy?
DEMON. Yes; for since thy soul thou gav'st me,
Thenceforth it to me was subject.
CYPRIAN. Is there then no gleam of hope,
No appeal, no aid, no succour,
By which I so great a crime
Can blot out?
DEMON. No.
CYPRIAN. Why doubt further?
Let not this sharp sword rest idly
In my hand, but swiftly cutting
Through my breast, become the willing
Instrument of mine own murder.
But what say I? He who could
Snatch Justina from thy clutches,
Can He not, too, rescue me?
DEMON. No. By choice thou wert a culprit,
And He does not favour crimes,
Virtues only.
CYPRIAN. If the summit
Of all power He be, to pardon
Is as easy as to punish.
DEMON. He rewardeth by His power,
He chastiseth from His justice.
CYPRIAN. One who yields He'll not chastise.
I am one, since I am humbled.
DEMON. Thou art mine, my slave: no master
Canst thou have but me.
CYPRIAN. I trust not.
DEMON. How, when still in my possession
Is that bond of thine, that bloody
Scroll inscribed by thine own hand?
CYPRIAN. He who is supreme and sovereign,
And depends not on another,
Will yet bear me through triumphant.
DEMON. In what way?
CYPRIAN. He is all sight,
And will see the fitting juncture.
DEMON. It I hold.
CYPRIAN. He is all hands,
And will burst my bonds asunder.
DEMON. Ere that comes I'll see thee dead:
Thus my clasping arms shall crush thee.
[They struggle together.
CYPRIAN. Thou great God, the Christians' God,
Oh, assist me in this struggle!
DEMON [flinging CYPRIAN from his arms].
It is He who has saved thy life.
CYPRIAN. More He'll do since I seek Him humbly.
[Exeunt.
* * * * *
SCENE XVII.
HALL IN THE PALACE OF THE GOVERNOR.
The Governor, FABIUS, and Soldiers.
GOVERNOR. How then was the capture made?
FABIUS. In their church, as we suspected,
We discovered them collected,
Where before their God they prayed.
With an armed guard I traced them
To this secret sacred hall,
Made them prisoners one and all,
And in different prisons placed them.
But, your patience not to tire,
The chief point I may declare,--
Captured is Justina fair,
And Lysander her old sire.
GOVERNOR. If for gold, a fair pretence,
If for rank, you would not miss,
Wherefore bring me news like this
And not claim your recompense?
FABIUS. If you deign to value thus
My poor service you may pay it.
GOVERNOR. How?
FABIUS. With great respect I say it,
Florus free, and Lelius.
GOVERNOR. Though I seemed austere and cold,
Them chastising without pity
To strike terror through the city,
Yet if the whole truth were told,
Then the cause were plain why they
Have been prisoned a whole year.
It is this, a father's fear
Lelius would preserve this way.
Florus was his rival, he
Had a host of powerful friends,
Each was jealous, and his ends
Would attain whate'er might be.
I was fearful a collision
Would ensue if they should meet,
So I thought it more discreet
Not to come to a decision.
So with this intent I sought
Some pretext, Justina's face
To expel from out this place,
But I could discover nought.
But since this event to-day,
With her damaged character,
Gives a right to banish her,
Nay, to take her life away,
Let them be released. No fear
Need you have about their fate;
Go, and Lelius liberate,
Go, and Florus bring me here.
FABIUS. Myriad times I kiss thy feet
For a favour so immense.
[Exit.
* * * * *
SCENE XVIII.
The Governor and Soldiers.
GOVERNOR. And since now this fair pretence,
This hypocritical deceit,
In my power at last doth lie,
Wherefore my revenge postpone
For the sorrows I have known
Through her fault? Yes, she shall die
By the bloody headsman's hand.
[To a Soldier.
Bring her hither in my name.
Let her punishment and shame
Be a terror to the land.
Let the palace she thought sweet
But her scaffold scene present.
[Exit the Soldier with others.
* * * * *
SCENE XIX.
FABIUS, LELIUS, and FLORUS.--THE SAME.
FABIUS. Sir, the two for whom you sent
Here are kneeling at your feet.
LELIUS. I, whose wish it is to be
Welcomed as thy son this time,
With no consciousness of crime
Do not see a judge in thee,
I an angry sire may see
With a son's respectful fear
And obedience.
FLORUS. Being here, I infer that it must be
(Though no guilt can I discern)
Thy chastising hand to feel.
See. Submissive here I kneel.
GOVERNOR. Lelius, Florus, I was stern,
Justly stern against ye two,
For as judge or father I
Could not unchastised pass by
Your offence. But then I knew
That in noble hearts the feeling
Of resentment does not last,
And as now the cause is past,
I resolved, to both appealing,
Friends to make of you once more.
So to consecrate the tie
Now embrace in amity.
LELIUS. I am glad that, as of yore,
Florus is my friend to-day.
FLORUS. That thou'rt mine this act may show.
Here's my hand.
GOVERNOR. This being so,
You are free to go or stay:--
When I tell you of the sad
Fall of her you once admired,
Northing further is required.
* * * * *
SCENE XX.
The Demon, a crowd of People.--THE SAME.
DEMON [within]. Ware! beware! He's mad! he's mad!
GOVERNOR. What is this?
LELIUS. I'll go and see.
[He goes to the door, and after a pause returns.
GOVERNOR. In this palace hall these cries,
From what cause can they arise?
FLORUS. Something serious it must be.
LELIUS. This confusion is occasioned
(Hear a singular adventure),
Sir, by Cyprian, who being absent
Many days again has entered*
Antioch completely mad.
[footnote] *Asonante in e-e which continues to the end.
FLORUS. It was doubtless the fine essence
Of his mind that thus has brought him
To this lamentable ending.
PEOPLE [within]. Ware the madman! ware the madman!
* * * * *
SCENE XXI.
CYPRIAN, half naked; People.--THE SAME.
CYPRIAN. Never was I more collected;
It is you yourselves are mad.
GOVERNOR. Cyprian, what is all this ferment?
CYPRIAN. Governor of Antioch,
Viceroy of great Caesar Decius,
Florus, Lelius, my young friends,
Whom I valued and respected,
Proud nobility, great people,
To my words be all attentive:
I am Cyprian, I am he
Once so studious, and so learned,
I the wonder of the schools,
Of the sciences the centre.
What I gained from all my studies
Was one doubt, a doubt that never
Left my wildered mind a moment,
Ever troubling and perplexing.
I Justina saw, and seeing,
To her charms my soul surrendered,
And for soft voluptuous Venus
Left the wise and learn'd Minerva.
Baffled by Justina's virtue,
I, pursuing though rejected,
And from one extreme to another
Passing on as passion led me,
To my guest, who from the sea
Found my feet a port of shelter,
For Justina pledged my soul,
Since at once he charmed my senses
And my intellect, by giving
Love its hopes, and thought its treasures.
From that hour, as his disciple
Lived I in these lonely deserts,
And to his laborious teaching
I am for a power indebted,
By which I can move even mountains
And in different places set them:
Yet although these mighty wonders
I can do to-day, I'm helpless
By the voice of my desire
To draw towards me one fair vestal.
And the cause why I am powerless
To subdue that beauteous virgin
Is that by a God she's guarded,
Whom, now knowing by His blessed
Grace bestowed, I come to acknowledge
As the Infinite, the Eternal.
Yes, the great God of the Christians
I now openly confess here.
And though true it is I am
Still of hell the slave and servant,
Having with my very blood
Signed a certain secret cedule,
Yet my blood that blood may blot out
In the martyrdom I'm expecting.
If you are a judge, if Christians
You pursue with bloody vengeance,
I am one: for in these mountains
A grave venerable elder
The first sacrament conferring
With its sacred sign impressed me.
This being so, why wait? Your orders
Give unto the bloody headsman,
Tell him here to strike this neck
And from it my head dissever.
Try my firmness as you will,
For I, resolute and determined,
Will endure a thousand deaths
Since this truth at last I've learned,
That without the great God, whom
Now I seek, adore, and reverence,
Human glories are but ashes,
Dust, smoke, wind, delusive, empty.
[He falls as if in a swoon, with his face to the ground.
GOVERNOR. So absorbed, so lost in wonder,
Cyprian, has thy daring left me,
That considering modes of torture
I have yet not one selected.
Rise. Bestir thee.
[Spurns him with his foot.
FLORUS. As a statue
Formed of ice he lies extended
* * * * *
SCENE XXII.
Soldiers, JUSTINA.--THE SAME.
A SOLDIER. Here, your Highness, is Justina.
GOVERNOR [aside]. I must go, her face unnerves me.--
With this living corse here lying
[Aside to his retinue.
Let us leave her for the present.
For the two being here confined,
It may alter their intentions,
Seeing that they are condemned
Both to die: if not, 'tis certain,
That unless they adore our gods
Frightful torments soon shall end them.
LELIUS [aside]. I remain 'twixt love and fear
Quite bewildered and suspended.
FLORUS [aside]. So affected have I been,
I scarce know what most affects me.
[Exeunt all, except JUSTINA.
* * * * *
SCENE XXIII.
JUSTINA; CYPRIAN, insensible on the ground.
JUSTINA. What! without a word you leave me?
When I come here, calm, contented,
Even to die. Ah! wishing death,
Am I then of death prevented?--
[She perceives CYPRIAN.
But my punishment is, doubtless,
Thus locked up to face the terrors
Of a slow and lingering death,
With the body of this wretch here
Left alone, my sole companion
Being a corse. O thou, re-entered
Into thy original earth,
Happy wert thou, if thy sentence
Was passed on thee for the faith
I adore!
CYPRIAN [recovering consciousness]. O proud avenger
Of your gods, why wait, the thread
Of my life to cut?...
[He perceives JUSTINA, and rises.
Heaven bless me!--
[Aside.
Can I trust my eyes? Justina!
JUSTINA [aside]. Cyprian, do I see? O Heaven!
CYPRIAN [aside]. No, it is not she, my thought
Fills the void air with her presence.
JUSTINA [aside]. No, it is not he, the wind
Forms this phantom to divert me.
CYPRIAN. Shadow of my fantasy...
JUSTINA. Of my wish, delusive spectre...
CYPRIAN. Terror of my startled senses...
JUSTINA. Horror of my heart's dejection...
CYPRIAN. What, then, wouldst thou?
JUSTINA. What, then, wouldst thou?
CYPRIAN. I invoked thee not. What errand
Has thou come on?
JUSTINA. Why thus seek me?
I to thee no thought directed.
CYPRIAN. Ah! I sought thee not, Justina.
JUSTINA. Nor here at thy call I entered.
CYPRIAN. Then why here?
JUSTINA. I am a prisoner.--
Thou?
CYPRIAN. I, too, have been arrested.
But, Justina, say what crime
Could thy virtue have effected?
JUSTINA. It is not for any crime,
It is from their deep resentment,
Their abhorrence of Christ's faith,
Whom I as my God confess here.
CYPRIAN. Thou dost owe Him that, Justina,
For thy God was thy defender,
He watched o'er thee in His goodness.
Get my prayers to Him accepted.
JUSTINA. Pray with faith, and He will listen.
CYPRIAN. Then with that I will address Him.
Though a fear, that's not despair,
Makes me for my great sins tremble.
JUSTINA. Oh! have confidence.
CYPRIAN. My crimes are
So immense.
JUSTINA. But more immense are
His great mercies.
CYPRIAN. Then, will He
Pardon have on me?
JUSTINA. 'Tis certain.
CYPRIAN. How, if my soul surrendered
To the Demon's self, as purchase
Of thy beauty?
JUSTINA. Oh, there are not
Stars as many in the heavens,
Sands as many on the shore,
Sparks within the fire as many,
Motes as many in the beam,
On the winds so many feathers,
As the sins He can forgive.
CYPRIAN. I believe it, and am ready
Now a thousand lives to give Him.--
But I hear some people enter.
* * * * *
SCENE XXIV.
FABIUS, leading in MOSCON, CLARIN, and LIVIA, as prisoners; CYPRIAN
and JUSTINA.
FABIUS. With your master and your mistress
Here remain confined together.
[Exit.
LIVIA. If THEY fancy to be Christians,
What have WE done to offend them?
MOSCON. Much: 'tis crime enough for us
That we happen to be servants.
CLARIN. Flying peril in the mountain,
I find here a greater peril.
* * * * *
SCENE XXV.
A Servant.--THE SAME.
SERVANT. The Lord Governor Aurelius
Summons Cyprian to his presence,
And Justina.
JUSTINA. Ah! how happy,
If 'tis for the wished-for ending.
Do not, Cyprian, be disheartened.
CYPRIAN. Faith, zeal, courage, all possess me:
For if life must be the ransom
Of my slavery to the devil,
He who gave his soul for thee,
Will he not give God his person?
JUSTINA. I once said that I could love thee
But in death, and since together,
Cyprian, we now must die,
What I promised I present thee.
[They are led out by the Servant.
* * * * *
SCENE XXVI.
MOSCON, LIVIA, and CLARIN.
MOSCON. How contentedly to die
They go forth.
LIVIA. Much more contented
Are we three to remain alive.
CLARIN. Not much more; for we must settle
Our account now, though I own
The occasion might be better,
And the place too, still 'twere wrong
To neglect the time that's present.
MOSCON. What account pray?
CLARIN. I have been
Absent.
LIVIA. Speak.
CLARIN. The whole of a twelvemonth,
When without my intermission
Moscon in possession held thee.
Now my quota in the business,
If we both have equal measure,
Is that I must have my year.
LIVIA. Can it be that I'm suspected
Of thus wronging thee so basely?
Why, I wept whole days together
When it was the day for weeping.
MOSCON. Yes, for I myself was present:
Every day that was not mine
She thy friendship quite respected.
CLARIN. That's a bounce; for not a tear,
When this day her house I entered,
Did she shed, and there I found thee
Sitting with her quite contented.
LIVIA. But this day is not a fast.
CLARIN. Yes, it is; for I remember
That the day I went away
Was my day.
LIVIA. Oh! that's an error.
MOSCON. Yes, I see how that arises,
This year is a year bissextile,
And our days are now the same.
CLARIN. Well, I'm satisfied, 'tis better
That a man should not too deeply
Pry into such things.--Good heavens!--
[The sound of a great tempest is heard.
* * * * *
SCENE XXVII.
The Governor, a crowd of People; then FABIUS, LELIUS, and FLORUS, all
astonished; afterwards The Demon.
LIVIA. Sure the house is tumbling down.
MOSCON. How terrific! what a tempest!
GOVERNOR. Doubtless in disastrous ruin
Topple down the walls of heaven
[The tempest is renewed, and enter FABIUS, LELIUS, and FLORUS.
FABIUS. Scarcely on the public scaffold
Had the headsman's hand dissevered
Cyprian and Justina's necks,
When the earth, even to its centre,
Seemed to tremble.
LELIUS. And a cloud,
From whose burning womb extended
The wild lightnings, the loud thunders,
Awful embryos were projected,
Fell upon us.
FLORUS. From which issued
A most horrid, most repelling
Shape, who on the scaly shells
Of a mailed and mighty serpent,
O'er the scaffold made a sign
Motioning silence and attention.
[The Scene opens, and a scaffold with the heads and bodies of JUSTINA
and CYPRIAN is seen. Over it in the air, upon a winged serpent, is
The Demon.
DEMON. Hear, O mortals, hear what I,
By the orders of high Heaven,
For Justina's exculpation,
Must declare to all here present.
I it was, who to dishonour
Her pure fame, in form dissembled
For the purpose, scaled her house,
And her very chamber entered.
And in order that her fame
Should not by that fraud be lessened,
I come here her injured honour
To exhibit pure and perfect.
Cyprian, who with her lieth
On a happy bier at rest there,
Was my slave. But he effacing,
With the blood his neck outsheddeth,
The red signature, the linen
Is now spotless and unblemished.
And the two, in spite of me,
Having to the spheres ascended
Of the sacred throne of God,
Live there in a world far better.--
This, then, is the truth, which I
Tell, because God makes me tell it,
Much against my will, my practice
Not being great as a truth-teller.
[He falls swiftly, and sinks into the earth.
LIVIA. Oh! what horror!
FLORUS. What confusion!
LIVIA. What a prodigy!
MOSCON. What terror!
GOVERNOR. These are all but the enchantments
Which this sorcerer effected
At his death.
FLORUS. I am in doubt
To believe them or reject them.
LELIUS. The mere thought of them confounds me.
CLARIN. If magician, it is certain,
As I hold, he must have been
The magician then of heaven.
MOSCON. Leaving our partitioned love
In a rather odd dilemma,
For "The Wonderful Magician"
Ask the pardon of its errors.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Wonder-Working Magician" ***
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