The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Duke of Gandia, by Swinburne (#6 in our series by Algernon Charles Swinburne) Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the header without written permission. Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. **Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** **eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** *****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** Title: The Duke of Gandia Author: Algernon Charles Swinburne Release Date: July, 2004 [EBook #6024] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on October 20, 2002] Edition: 10 Language: English Character set encoding: ASCII
Transcribed from the 1908 Chatto and Windus edition by David Price, email [email protected]
THE DUKE OF GANDIA
PERSONS REPRESENTED.
POPE ALEXANDER VI.
FRANCESCO BORGIA, Duke of Gandia }his sons
CÆSAR BORGIA, Cardinal of Valencia }
DON
MICHELE COREGLIA, called MICHELOTTO, agent for Cæsar Borgia.
GIORGIO
SCHIAVONE, a Tiber waterman.
TWO ASSASSINS.
AN OFFICER of the Papal Household.
VANNOZZA CATANEI, surnamed LA ROSA, concubine to the Pope.
LUCREZIA
BORGIA, daughter to Alexander and Vannozza.
SCENE: ROME.
TIME: JUNE 14 - JULY 22, 1497.
SCENE I
The Vatican
Enter CÆSAR and VANNOZZA
CÆSAR
Now, mother, though thou love my brother more,
Am I not more
thy son than he?
VANNOZZA
Not more.
CÆSAR
Have I more Spaniard in me - less of thee?
Did our Most Holiest
father thrill thy womb
With more Italian passion than brought forth
Me?
VANNOZZA
Child, thine elder never was as thou -
Spake
never thus.
CÆSAR
I doubt it not. But I,
Mother,
am not mine elder. He desires
And he enjoys the life God
gives him - God,
The Pope our father, and thy sacred self,
Mother
beloved and hallowed. I desire
More.
VANNOZZA
Thou wast ever sleepless as the wind -
A child
anhungered for thy time to be
Man. See thy purple about thee.
Art thou not
Cardinal?
CÆSAR
Ay; my father’s eminence
Set so the
stamp on mine. I will not die
Cardinal.
VANNOZZA
Cæsar, wilt thou cleave my heart?
Have
I not loved thee?
CÆSAR
Ay, fair mother - ay.
Thou
hast loved my father likewise. Dost thou love
Giulia - the
sweet Farnese - called the Fair
In all the Roman streets that call
thee Rose?
And that bright babe Giovanni, whom our sire,
Thy
holy lord and hers, hath stamped at birth
As duke of Nepi?
VANNOZZA
When thy sire begat
Thee,
sinful though he ever was - fierce, fell,
Spaniard - I fear me,
Jesus for his sins
Bade Satan pass into him.
CÆSAR
And fill thee
full,
Sweet sinless mother. Fear it not. Thou hast
Children
more loved of him and thee than me -
Our bright Francesco, born
to smile and sway,
And her whose face makes pale the sun in heaven,
Whose
eyes outlaugh the splendour of the sea,
Whose hair has all noon’s
wonders in its weft,
Whose mouth is God’s and Italy’s
one rose,
Lucrezia.
VANNOZZA
Dost thou love them then? My child,
How
should not I then love thee?
CÆSAR
God alone
Knows.
Was not God - the God of love, who bade
His son be man because
he hated man,
And saw him scourged and hanging, and at last
Forgave
the sin wherewith he had stamped us, seeing
So fair a full atonement
- was not God
Bridesman when Christ’s crowned vicar took
to bride
My mother?
VANNOZZA
Speak not thou to me of God.
I
have sinned, I have sinned - I would I had died a nun,
Cloistered!
CÆSAR
There too my sire had found thee. Priests
Make
way where warriors dare not - save when war
Sets wide the floodgates
of the weirs of hell.
And what hast thou to do with sin?
Hath he
Whose sin was thine not given thee there and then
God’s
actual absolution? Mary lived
God’s virgin, and God’s
mother: mine art thou,
Who am Christlike even as thou art virginal.
And
if thou love me or love me not God knows,
And God, who made me
and my sire and thee,
May take the charge upon him. I am
I.
Somewhat I think to do before my day
Pass from me.
Did I love thee not at all,
I would not bid thee know it.
VANNOZZA
Alas, my son!
CÆSAR
Alas, my mother, sounds no sense for men -
Rings but reverberate
folly, whence resounds
Returning laughter. Weep or smile
on me,
Thy sunshine or thy rainbow softens not
The mortal
earth wherein thou hast clad me. Nay,
But rather would I
see thee smile than weep,
Mother. Thou art lovelier, smiling.
VANNOZZA
What is this
Thou
hast at heart to do? God’s judgment hangs
Above us.
I that girdled thee in me
As Mary girdled Jesus yet unborn
-
Thou dost believe it? A creedless heretic
Thou art not?
CÆSAR
I? God’s vicar’s child?
VANNOZZA
Be God
Praised!
I, then, I, thy mother, bid thee, pray,
Pray thee but say what
hungers in thy heart,
And whither thou wouldst hurl the strenuous
life
That works within thee.
CÆSAR
Whither? Am not I
Hinge
of the gate that opens heaven - that bids
God open when my sire
thrusts in the key -
Cardinal? Canst thou dream I had rather
be
Duke?
Enter FRANCESCO
FRANCESCO
Wilt thou take mine office, Cæsar mine?
I
heard thy laugh deride it. Mother, whence
Comes that sweet
gift of grace from dawn to dawn
That daily shows thee sweeter?
CÆSAR
Knowest thou
none
Lovelier?
VANNOZZA
My Cæsar finds me not so fair.
Thou
art over fond, Francesco.
CÆSAR
Nay, no whit.
Our
heavenly father on earth adores no less
Our mother than our sister:
and I hold
His heart and eye, his spirit and his sense,
Infallible.
Enter the POPE
ALEXANDER
Jest not with God. I heard
A
holy word, a hallowing epithet,
Cardinal Cæsar, trip across
thy tongue
Lightly.
CÆSAR
Most holiest father, I desire
Paternal absolution
- when thy laugh
Has waned from lip and eyelid.
ALEXANDER
Take it now,
And
Christ preserve thee, Cæsar, as thou art,
To serve him as
I serve him. Rose of mine,
My rose of roses, whence has fallen
this dew
That dims the sweetest eyes love ever lit
With light
that mocks the morning?
VANNOZZA
Nay, my lord,
I
know not - nay, I knew not if I wept.
ALEXANDER
Our sons and Christ’s and Peter’s whom we praise,
Are
they - are these - fallen out?
FRANCESCO
Not I with
him,
Nor he, I think, with me.
CÆSAR
Forbid it, God!
The God
that set thee where thou art, and there
Sustains thee, bids the
love he kindles bind
Brother to brother.
ALEXANDER
God or no God, man
Must
live and let man live - while one man’s life
Galls not another’s.
Fools and fiends are men
Who play the fiend that is not.
Why shouldst thou,
Girt with the girdle of the church, and given
Power
to preside on spirit and flesh - or thou,
Clothed with the glad
world’s glory - priest or prince,
Turn on thy brother an
evil eye, or deem
Your father God hath dealt his doom amiss
Toward
either or toward any? Hath not Rome,
Hath not the Lord Christ’s
kingdom, where his will
Is done on earth, enough of all that man
Thirsts,
hungers, lusts for - pleasure, pride, and power -
To sate you and
to share between you? Whence
Should she, the godless heathen’s
goddess once,
Discord, heave up her hissing head again
Between
love’s Christian children - love’s? Hath God
Cut
short the thrill that glorifies the flesh,
Chilled the sharp rapturous
pang that burns the blood,
Because an hundred even as twain at
once
Partake it? Boys, my boys, be wise, and rest,
Whatever
fire take hold upon your flesh,
Whatever dream set all your life
on fire,
Friends.
CÆSAR
Friends? Our father on earth, thy will be done.
FRANCESCO
Christ’s body, Cæsar! dost thou mock?
CÆSAR
Not I.
Hast
thou fallen out with me, then, that thy tongue
Disclaims its lingering
utterance?
ALEXANDER
Now, by nought,
As nought
abides to swear by, folly seen
So plain and heard so loud might
well nigh make
Wise men believe in even the devil and God.
What
ails you? Whence comes lightning in your eyes,
With hissing
hints of thunder on your lips?
Fools! and the fools I thought to
make for men
Gods. Is it love or hate divides you - turns
Tooth,
fang, or claw, when time provides them prey,
To nip, rip, rend
each other?
CÆSAR
Hate or love,
Francesco?
FRANCESCO
Why, I hate thee not - thou knowest
I
hate thee not, my Cæsar.
CÆSAR
I believe
Thou
dost not hate or love or envy me;
Even as I know, and knowing believe,
we all -
Our father, thou and I - triune in heart -
Hold loveliest
of all living things to love
This.
Enter LUCREZIA
LUCREZIA
Mother! What do tears and thou for once
Together?
Rain in sunshine?
VANNOZZA
Ask thy sire,
Am
I not now the moon? Saint Anna bore
Saint Mary Virgin - did
not God prefer
The child, and thrust behind with scarce a smile
The
mother?
ALEXANDER
Thrust not out thy thorns at
heaven,
Rose.
LUCREZIA
But what ailed her? And she will not say.
CÆSAR
Sister, I sinned - sin must be mine. A word
Fell out askance
between us, and she wept
Because our father chid us.
LUCREZIA
How should
strife
Find here a tongue to hiss with? Are not we,
Brothers
and sire and sister, sealed of God
Lovers - made one in love?
ALEXANDER
Deride not
God,
Lucrezia.
LUCREZIA
Father, dost thou fear him, then?
ALEXANDER
I say not and I know not if I fear.
FRANCESCO
Thou canst not. Father, were he terrible,
How long wouldst
thou live - thou, his mask on earth?
ALEXANDER
Boy, art thou all a child? What knew they more,
The men
that loved and feared and died for God,
Than I and thou who know
him not? We know
This life is ours, and sweet, if shame and
fear
Make us not less than man: and less were they
Who crawled
and writhed and cowered and called on God
To save them from him.
Here I stand as he,
God, or God’s very figure wrought in
flesh,
More godlike than was Jesus. Dare I fear
Whipping
and hanging? Thou, my cardinal,
Canst think not to be scourged
and crucified -
Ha?
CÆSAR
Nay: there lurks no God in me. And thou,
Father,
dost thou fear?
ALEXANDER
I? Nought less than God.
But
if we take him lightly on our lips
Too light his name will sound
in all men’s ears
Till earth and air, when man says God,
respond
Laughter. Forbear him.
CÆSAR
Wisdom lives in thee,
And
cries not out along the streets as when
None of God’s folk
that heard regarded her,
As all that hear thy word regard - or
die,
Being not outside God’s eyeshot. Dost thou sleep
Here
in his special keeping - here - to-night,
Brother?
FRANCESCO
What bids thee care to know?
CÆSAR
They say
These
holy streets of heaven’s most holiest choice
Lie dangerous
now in darkness if a man
Walk not on holiest errands. Thou,
they say,
Wert scarce a Christlike sacrifice if slain.
Too
many dead flow down the Tiber’s flow
Nightly. They
say it.
FRANCESCO
I never called
thee yet
Fool.
CÆSAR
Ah, my lord and brother, didst thou now,
Were
this not thankless? God - our father’s God -
Guide
thee! [Exit FRANCESCO.
He goes,
and thanks me not. Our sire,
What says the God that lives
upon thy lips
And withers in thy silence?
LUCREZIA
Vex him not,
Cæsar.
Thou seest he is weary.
ALEXANDER
Yea.
Come ye
With me. Bethink thee, Cæsar. Vex me
not.
Exeunt ALEXANDER, VANNOZZA, and LUCREZIA.
CÆSAR
Thou wilt not bid me this, I think, again,
Father.
Enter MICHELOTTO
Thou art swift of speed at need. I bade thee
Abide
my bidding.
MICHELOTTO
Till my lord were left
Alone.
CÆSAR
Thou knewest it?
MICHELOTTO
Where my lord may be
And
what beseems his thrall to know of him
I were not worthy, knew
I not, to know.
CÆSAR
I do not ask thee where my brother sleeps.
And where to-morrow
sees him yet asleep -
MICHELOTTO
Ask of the fishers’ nets on Tiber.
CÆSAR
Nay -
Not
I but Rome shall ask it. Pass in peace.
The benediction of
my sire be thine. [Exeunt.
SCENE II
A narrow street opening on the Tiber
Enter MICHELOTTO and ASSASSINS
MICHELOTTO
Ye know the lordlier harlot’s house - there?
FIRST ASSASSIN
Ay,
Surely.
MICHELOTTO
The first whose foot comes forth is he.
SECOND ASSASSIN
How know we this?
MICHELOTTO
I know it. Ye need but
slay.
[Exit.
Enter FRANCESCO
FRANCESCO (singing)
Love and night are life and light;
Sleep and
wine and song
Speed and slay the halting day
Ere
it live too long.
FIRST ASSASSIN
That shalt not thou. Sing, whosoe’er thou be,
Thy
next of songs to Satan.
[They stab him.
FRANCESCO
Dogs! Ye dare?
God!
Pity me! God! [Dies.
SECOND ASSASSIN
God receive his soul!
This
was a Christian: many a man I have slain
Died with all hell between
his lips.
FIRST ASSASSIN
Be thine
Dumb.
Lift his feet as I the head.
SECOND ASSASSIN
A boy!
And
fair of face as angels
FIRST ASSASSIN
If the nets
Snare
not this fish betimes ere others feed,
None that shall heave it
airward for the sun
To mock and mar shall say so. Bring him
down.
Tiber hath fed on choicer fare than we
May think to
feed his throat with ere we die.
[Exeunt with the body.
SCENE III
The Vatican
ALEXANDER and LUCREZIA
ALEXANDER
The day burns high. Thou hast not seen them - thou?
LUCREZIA
My brethren, sire? Nay, not since yesternight.
ALEXANDER
The night is newly dead. Since yestereven?
LUCREZIA
Nor then. I saw them when we parted here
Last.
ALEXANDER
I believe thou liest not. Girl, the day
Looks
pale before thy glory. Brow, cheek, eye,
Lips, throat, and
bosom, thou dost overshine
All womanhood man ever worshipped.
Once
I held thy mother fairest born of all
That ever turned
old Rome to heaven. Thou hast read
Her golden Horace?
LUCREZIA
Else were I cast out
From
all their choir who serve the Muses.
ALEXANDER
Ay.
‘Fair
mother’s fairer daughter,’ dost thou deem
That praise
was ever merited as by thee?
I cannot.
LUCREZIA
I concern myself no whit
If so it were or
were not.
ALEXANDER
Thou dost well.
Thou
hast not seen, thou sayest, Francesco?
LUCREZIA
Nay -
Give
me some reliquary to swear it on -
Some rosary - crucifix or amulet,
Sorcerous
or sacred.
ALEXANDER
Never twins were born
More
like than thou and he - nor lovelier: yet
No twins were ye.
LUCREZIA
What ails thy Holiness?
ALEXANDER
I am ill at ease: my heart is sick. Last night
No revel
here was held, and yet the day
Strikes heavier on me wearier, body
and soul,
Than though we had rioted out with raging mirth
The
lifelong length of darkness.
LUCREZIA
Evil hours
Fret
somewhiles all folk living; none sees why:
No child sleeps always
all night long.
ALEXANDER
Wast thou
Wakeful?
No trouble clung about thee? Nought
Made the air of night
heavier with presage felt
As joy feels fear and withers?
I am not
Afraid: methinks I am very fear itself.
Enter an Officer of the household
OFFICER
His holiness be gracious towards me.
ALEXANDER
Speak.
Thy
face is death’s: let death upon thy lips
Live.
OFFICER
Sire, the humblest hireling knave in Rome -
A
waterman that plies his craft all night -
Craves audience even
of thee.
ALEXANDER
A Roman?
OFFICER
Nay.
Some
outlander - some Greek - they call the knave
George the Slavonian.
ALEXANDER
They?
OFFICER
The fisherfolk
On
Tiber.
ALEXANDER
Bid him in: bid God himself
Come in with doom
upon me. [Exit Officer.
Hear’st
thou, child -
Daughter?
LUCREZIA
What horror hangs on thee?
ALEXANDER
Abide,
And
thou shalt know as I know.
Enter GIORGIO SCHIAVONE
Speak.
I say,
Speak. What thou art I know: and what I am
Thou
knowest - and yet thou knowest not.
GIORGIO
Holiest sire,
Last night
I kept my boat on Tiber - Sire,
The thing I saw was nothing of
my deed -
It shook me out of sleep to see it - Lord,
Have
mercy: look not so upon me.
ALEXANDER
Dog,
Speak,
while thy tongue is thine.
GIORGIO
Two men came down
And peered
along the water-side: and two
Came after - men whose eyes raked
all the night,
Searching the shore - I lay beneath my boat -
Beside
it on the darkling side - and saw.
Then came a horseman - Sire,
his horse was white -
The moonshine made his mane like dull white
fire -
And on his crupper heavily hung a corpse,
Arms held
from swaying on this side, legs on that,
I know not which on either
- but the men
Held fast that held: and hard on Tiber side
They
swung the crupper towards the water - sharp
And swift as man may
steer a horse - and caught
And slung their dead into the stream:
and he
Drifted, and caught the moon across his face
That shone
like life against it: and the chief
Till then sat silent as the
moon at watch,
And then bade hurl stones on the drifting dead
And
sink him out of sight; and seeing this done,
Rode thence, and they
strode after.
ALEXANDER
Man, and thou
-
Thou?
GIORGIO
Sire, I set my heart again to sleep:
I turned
and slept under my boatside.
ALEXANDER
Man -
Dog
- devil, if this be truth, and if my fear
Lie not - how hadst thou
heart to hold thy peace?
How comes it that the warders of the shore
Knew
not of thee, while yet the crime was hot,
What crime had made night
hell?
GIORGIO
A thousand times
I have
seen such sights, but never till this hour
Seen him who cared to
hear of them.
ALEXANDER
Till now,
Never.
He looks in God’s mute face and mine,
And says it.
God be good to me! But God
Will not - or is not. Where
is then thy dead,
Devil, called of God from hell to smite - to
scourge -
Me?
GIORGIO
Sire, at hand I left him.
ALEXANDER
Stir not.
Bid
Thy fellows bring my dead before me. [Exit Officer.
Nay,
But
mine it is not yet - it may not be
Mine - while it may not be,
it is not. Child,
It shall not be thy brother. Pray
no prayer.
Prayer never yet brought profit. Be not pale.
Fear
strikes more deep into the fearful heart
The wound it heals not.
Enter Officers with the body of FRANCESCO
What is he they bring?
O
God! Thou livest! And my child is dead!
[Falls.
SCENE IV
The Vatican
ALEXANDER and CÆSAR
ALEXANDER
Thou hast done this deed.
CÆSAR
Thou hast said it.
ALEXANDER
Dost thou think
To live,
and look upon me?
CÆSAR
Some while yet.
ALEXANDER
I would there were a God - that he might hear.
CÆSAR
’Tis pity there should be - for thy sake - none.
ALEXANDER
Wilt thou slay me?
CÆSAR
Why?
ALEXANDER
Am not I thy sire?
CÆSAR
And Christendom’s to boot.
ALEXANDER
I pray thee,
man,
Slay me.
CÆSAR
And then myself? Thou art
crazed, but I
Sane.
ALEXANDER
Art thou very flesh and blood?
CÆSAR
They
say,
Thine.
ALEXANDER
If the heaven stand still and smite thee not,
There
is no God indeed.
CÆSAR
Nor thou nor
I
Know.
ALEXANDER
I could pray to God that God might be,
Were
I but mad. Thou sayest I am mad: thou liest:
I do not pray.
CÆSAR
Most holiest father, no.
Thy
brain is not so sick yet. Thou and God
Friends? Man,
how long would God have let thee live -
Thee?
ALEXANDER
Long enough he hath kept me, to behold
His
face as fire - if his it be - and earth
As hell - and thee, begotten
of my loins,
Satan.
CÆSAR
The firstfruits of thy fatherhood
Were
something less than Satan. Man of God,
Vaunt not thyself.
ALEXANDER
I would I had died in the womb.
CÆSAR
Thou shalt do better, dying in Peter’s chair:
Thou shalt
die famous.
ALEXANDER
Ay: no screen from that,
No
shelter, no forgetfulness on earth.
We shall be famed for ever.
Hell and night,
Cover me!
CÆSAR
Hast thou heard that prayers are heard?
Or
hast thou known earth, for a man’s cry’s sake,
Cleave,
and devour him?
ALEXANDER
I have done
this thing.
Thou hast not done it: thy deed is none of thine:
Upon
my hand, upon my head, the blood
Rests.
CÆSAR
Wilt thou sleep the worse for this next year?
ALEXANDER
I will not live a seven days’ space beyond
This.
CÆSAR
Thou hast lived thy seven days’ space in
hell,
Father: they say thou hast fasted even from sleep.
ALEXANDER
Ay.
CÆSAR
What they say and what thou sayest I hold
False.
Though thou hast wept as woman, howled as wolf,
Above our dead,
thou art hale and whole. And now
Behoves thee rise again
as Christ our God,
Vicarious Christ, and cast as flesh away
This
grief from off thy godhead. I and thou,
One, will set hand
as never God hath set
To the empire and the steerage of the world.
Do
thou forget but him who is dead, and was
Nought, and bethink thee
what a world to wield
The eternal God hath given into thine hands
Which
daily mould him out of bread, and give
His kneaded flesh to feed
on. Thou and I
Will make this rent and ruinous Italy
One.
Ours it shall be, body and soul, and great
Above all power and
glory given of God
To them that died to set thee where thou art
-
Throned on the dust of Cæsar and of Christ,
Imperial.
Earth shall quail again, and rise
Again the higher because she
trembled. Rome
So bade it be: it was, and shall be.
ALEXANDER
Son,
Art
thou my son?
CÆSAR
Whom should thy radiant Rose
Have
found so fit to ingraff with, and bring forth
So strong a scion
as I am?
ALEXANDER
By my faith
-
Wherein, I know not - by my soul, if that
Be - I believe
it. God forgot his doom
When he thou hast slain drew breath
before thee
CÆSAR
God
Must
needs forget - if God remember. Now
This thing thou hast
loved, and I that swept him hence
Held never fit for hate of mine,
is dead,
Wilt thou be one with me - one God? No less,
Lord
Christ of Rome, thou wilt be.
ALEXANDER
Ay? The Dove?
CÆSAR
What dove, though lovelier than the swan that lured
Leda to
love of God on earth, might match
Lucrezia?
ALEXANDER
None. Thou art subtle of soul and strong.
I
would thou hadst spared him - couldst have spared him.
CÆSAR
Sire,
I would so too.
Our sire, his sire and mine,
I slew not him for lust of slaying,
or hate,
Or aught less like thy wiser spirit and mine.
ALEXANDER
Not for the dove’s sake?
CÆSAR
Not for hate or love.
Death
was the lot God bade him draw, if God
Be more than what we make
him.
ALEXANDER
Bread
and wine
Could hardly turn so bitter. Canst thou sleep?
CÆSAR
Dost thou not? Flesh must sleep to live. Am I
No
son of thine?
ALEXANDER
I would I saw
thine end,
And mine: and yet I would not.
CÆSAR
Sire,
good night.
[Exeunt
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