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diff --git a/34196-h/34196-h.htm b/34196-h/34196-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1464c4a --- /dev/null +++ b/34196-h/34196-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3182 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg e-Book of Porzia, by Cale Young Rice.</title> +<style type="text/css"> + + +body {font-size: 1em; text-align: justify; margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%; } + +h1 span, h2 span { display: block; + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + +h3 span {display: block; /*ads heading*/ + text-align: center; + margin-top: 10%; + margin-bottom: .5%; + } + +#idby {font-size: x-small; + } + +#idcale {font-size: 65%; + } + +p { text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.75em; + margin-bottom: 0.75em; + } + + + + +.p0 { text-indent: 0; /*metric dialogue*/ + margin-top: 0; + margin-bottom: 0; + } + +.p2 { margin-left: 2em; /*metric indentions*/ + margin-top: 0; + margin-bottom: 0; + } + +.p3 { margin-left: 3em; + margin-top: 0; + margin-bottom: 0; + } + +.p4 { margin-left: 4em; + margin-top: 0; + margin-bottom: 0; + } + +.p5 { margin-left: 5em; + margin-top: 0; + margin-bottom: 0; + } + +.p6 { margin-left: 6em; + margin-top: 0; + margin-bottom: 0; + } + +.p7 { margin-left: 7em; + margin-top: 0; + margin-bottom: 0; + } + +.p8 { margin-left: 8em; + margin-top: 0; + margin-bottom: 0; + } + +.p9 { margin-left: 9em; + margin-top: 0; + margin-bottom: 0; + } + +.noindent { text-indent: 0em; + } + + +.ralign5 { margin-right: 5%; /*signature*/ + text-align: right; + } + + +.poem2 {margin-left: 32%; /*cast of characters*/ + margin-right: 32%; + } + + +.box { margin-left: 15%; /*scene descriptions for acts*/ + margin-right: 15%; + margin-top: 7%; + margin-bottom: 7%; + padding-left: 2%; + } + +.adbox { margin-top: 2.5%; /*ads*/ + margin-bottom: 5%; + font-size: smaller; + } + +.indh { text-indent: -2%; /*hanging indent*/ + text-align: left; + } + +.poem {margin-left: 8%; /*drama*/ + margin-right: 8%; + margin-top: 1%; + margin-bottom: 1%; + padding-left: 5%; + } + +.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em; /*poem*/ + } + + +.center {text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + font-size: smaller; + } + +.center1 { text-align: center; /*sub-heading of act*/ + text-indent: 0em; + font-size: 150%; + } + + + +.center2 { text-align: center; /*ads book titles*/ + text-indent: 0em; + font-weight: bold; + } + + +.char { text-indent: -2%; /*speaker (with stage directions)*/ + text-align: left; + margin-bottom: 0; + } + + +.char2 { margin-right: 5%; /*centered stage directions*/ + margin-left: 5%; + text-align: left; + margin-top: 2.5%; + margin-bottom: .5%; + } + + + +.ralign20 { margin-right: 20%; /*[bracketed stage directions */ + margin-left: 20%; + text-indent: -2%; + text-align: left; + margin-top: 0; + margin-bottom: 0; + } + + + + +.smcap { font-variant: small-caps; + font-size: 95%; + } + +.smcap1 { font-variant: small-caps; + } + + +</style> +</head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Porzia, by Cale Young Rice + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Porzia + +Author: Cale Young Rice + +Release Date: November 2, 2010 [EBook #34196] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PORZIA *** + + + + +Produced by David Garcia and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Kentuckiana Digital Library) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + +<h1><span>PORZIA</span> +<span id="idby">BY</span> +<span id="idcale">CALE YOUNG RICE</span></h1> + +<p class="center"><small>AUTHOR OF</small></p> + +<p class="center">"A NIGHT IN AVIGNON," "YOLANDA OF CYPRUS," "CHARLES DI<br /> +TOCCA," "DAVID," "MANY GODS," "NIRVANA DAYS,"<br /> +"FAR QUESTS," "THE IMMORTAL LURE," ETC.</p> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Garden City New York</span><br /> +DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY<br /> +MCMXIII</p> + +<p class="center"><i><small>Copyright, 1913, by</small></i><br /> +<span class="smcap">Cale Young Rice</span><br /> +<i>All rights reserved, including that of<br /> +translation into Foreign Languages,<br /> +including the Scandinavian.</i></p> + +<p class="center">To<br /> +GILBERT MURRAY<br /> +<i>Poet, Dramatist, and Master-Interpreter of a great<br /> + literature</i></p> + + + +<h2><span>PREFACE</span></h2> + + +<p>Some years ago while writing "A Night In Avignon" the thought came to me +of framing two other plays that should deal respectively with the +Renaissance spirit at its height and decadence, as that play had dealt +with it at its beginning. For the great human upheaval that came +intoxicatingly to Italy during the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth +centuries is so full of ęsthetic contrast and glamor as to be peculiarly +suitable for the doubly exacting purposes of poetic drama.</p> + +<p>"Giorgione," the second of these plays to be written, was published in +1911 with three other plays in a volume entitled "The Immortal Lure," +and like "A Night In Avignon" was received with such kindness as to +encourage me to write the third, here presented under the name of +"Porzia."</p> + +<p>This last play, whose period is that of "decadent Humanism," or as +Symonds prefers to call it, of "The Catholic Reaction," is laid in +Naples, where the passions of men, more than freed from the long +domination of the Church and the Hereafter, seemed to reach in their +grasp at this life almost incredible heights and depths of excess. And +yet from amid this excess, as from a rank and unweeded garden, were +springing into flower many seeds of modern intellectual enfranchisement, +as the achievements of Bruno and his contemporaries witness.</p> + +<p>I need only add that I have sought to use materials that would be true +to the time of this final portrayal, and that I therefore trust it may +be understood as an organic member of the group to which it belongs.</p> + +<p class="ralign5">C. Y. R.</p> + +<p>Louisville, Kentucky, June, 1912.</p> + + + + +<h2><span >ACT I</span> + +<span >CHARACTERS</span></h2> + +<div class="poem2"> +<p class="noindent"><big> RIZZIO DI ROSSI </big><i>A young Leader of the Literati at Naples, suspected of heresy</i></p> +<p class="noindent"><big>OSIO</big> <i>His Brother</i></p> +<p class="noindent"><big> PORZIA</big> <i>His Wife</i></p> +<p class="noindent"><big> ALOYSIUS</big> <i>Her Uncle, a Physician</i></p> +<p class="noindent"><big> BIANCA</big> <i>Her Cousin, a Florentine, once betrothed to Osio</i></p> +<p class="noindent"><big> GIORDANO BRUNO </big><i>A young Dominican, also heretical</i></p> +<p class="noindent"><big>MONSIGNOR QUERIO</big> <i>An Officer of the Inquisition</i></p> +<p class="noindent"><big> TASSO</big> <i>A Poet</i></p> +<p class="noindent"><big> MARINA</big> <i>A Sicilian serving Porzia</i></p> +<p class="noindent"><big>MATTEO</big> <i>Serving Rizzio, later Osio</i></p> +<p class="noindent"><i>Dancers from Capri, Musicians, Guards of the Inquisition, etc.</i></p> +<p class="noindent"><big>TIME—</big><i>About 1570</i></p> +</div> + + +<div class="box"> +<p class="center"> <big><b>PORZIA</b></big></p> +<p class="indh"><span class="smcap">Scene:</span> <i>A portion of the house, terrace and garden of Rizzio on his +wedding day at Naples. It is so situated as to command a view of the +city, the blue Bay with Capri set like a topaz in it, the Vesuvian +coast, and the Mountain itself—rising like a calm though unappeasable +monitor against the land's too sensual enchantment.</i></p> + +<p><i>The house, a white corner of which is visible along the right, has +large doors toward the back giving upon the terrace. A vine-clad terrace +wall, several feet above the level of the terrace, but much above that +of the street without, runs across the rear to a cypress-set gate in the +centre, and on into the lustrous Spring foliage of ilex, myrtle and +orange.</i></p> + +<p><i>A pedestaled image of the Virgin against the house, a statue of Pan +before a bower opposite, and several stone seats forward, are decked +with orange blossoms that glow in the light of late afternoon.</i></p> + +<p><i>Music, reveling, and laughter are heard, muffled, within. Then amid a +louder burst of them Osio strides angrily forth. He is followed in +argumentative elation by Rizzio—clothed in Greek raiment, a book in his +hand—and by Bruno.</i></p></div> + + +<div class="poem"> + +<p class="char"> <i>Osio</i> (<i>as they come down</i>).</p> +<p class="p0">Proof from the teeth of aliens and fools</p> +<p class="p0">And infidels that follow their own reason?</p> +<p class="p0">I want no proof! your books should burn in Hell!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio</i> (<i>gaily</i>). </p> +<p class="p0">Because they glorify the stars in heaven?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Osio.</i></p> +<p class="p0">I say they are heresy!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio.</i></p> +<p class="p8">And I say truth!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Uplifts volume.</i></p> +<p class="p0">That were your ears not stopped with sophistries</p> +<p class="p0">And Jesuitry you would adjudge divine!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Tosses it down.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Bruno.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">Ai, Signor Osio, there's no denying!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Porzia appears anxiously at the door.</i></p> +<p class="p0">We need but look,</p> +<p class="p0">To learn that stars are worlds</p> +<p class="p0">Swung out upon infinitudes of space.</p> +<p class="p0">And as for earth—</p> +<p class="p0">Tho Christ shed blood upon it—</p> +<p class="p0">'Tis but a pilgrim flame among them all.</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Porzia leaves door.</i></p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Osio</i> (<i>turning upon him</i>).</p> +<p class="p0">And you, a monk, will say so to the Church</p> +<p class="p0">And to the Holy Office?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Bruno</i> (<i>in humorous alarm</i>). </p> +<p class="p8">God forbid!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Osio.</i></p> +<p class="p0">And you, Rizzio, who on your wedding-day,</p> +<p class="p0">Mid rites of Venus</p> +<p class="p0">And revels to Apollo,</p> +<p class="p0">Wear pagan robes—and prink others in them—</p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Rizzio.</i></p> +<p class="p0"> Ho, others! meaning Porzia?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Osio.</i></p> +<p class="p9"> I say—</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Mirth within.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio</i> (<i>laughing at him</i>). </p> +<p class="p0">What, what, my merry raging brother, more?</p> +<p class="p0">That Pan is not your god, whom I but now</p> +<p class="p0">Besought for inward beauty and truth of soul?</p> +<p class="p0">No, no, he is not, by Vesuvius!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Osio.</i></p> +<p class="p0">I say—</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">That Plato and the ancients are</p> +<p class="p0"> A plague which only the Pope can purge from earth?</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Again laughing.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Ai! to the flames with them, and with all fairness!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Osio.</i></p> +<p class="p0">I say that you—</p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Rizzio.</i> </p> +<p class="p5">Hey, yea! that I who fall</p> +<p class="p0">Not on my knees to mitred villainy—</p> +<p class="p0">Or cringe to crosiered craft—</p> +<p class="p0">And yet whose life is lit for truth and freedom—</p> +<p class="p0">Am viler far than you</p> +<p class="p0">Who take your pleasure and pay it with confession?</p> +<p class="p0">Who think the Devil with faith would be no Devil?</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Porzia again appears with Bianca.</i></p> +<p class="p0">You hear it, Bruno?</p> + + +<p class="char"><i>Osio.</i></p> +<p class="p6">I say there is one thing</p> +<p class="p0">You shall not do!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio.</i> </p> +<p class="p5">So-ho! my lordly brother,</p> +<p class="p0"> My breaker of betrothals—if not creeds—</p> +<p class="p0">And that is what?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Osio.</i> </p> +<p class="p5">I will protect her from it!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">Her?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Osio.</i> </p> +<p class="p2">Porzia! from the passion of your lies!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Astonishment.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio</i> (<i>stung, staring</i>).</p> +<p class="p0">By ... all the saints</p> +<p class="p0">and fiends and incubi</p> +<p class="p0">That ever infested night and nunneries!</p> +<p class="p0">What frenzy now is biting at your brain!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Before him.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Is she your wife, so to concern your care?</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>They face, pale.</i></p> + + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia</i> (<i>who sees, and with Bianca comes quickly, winningly down</i>).</p> +<p class="p0">Heresy! heresy! truth and heresy!</p> +<p class="p0">Are there no other words in all the world</p> +<p class="p0">To pour as wine</p> +<p class="p0">Upon a wedding-day!—</p> +<p class="p0">Are these your ways, my newly wedded lord,</p> +<p class="p0">To leave me, an hour's bride, away from home—</p> +<p class="p0">From my dear uncle's home—</p> +<p class="p0">With but a friend or two for comforting—</p> +<p class="p0">And bandy words of other stars than those</p> +<p class="p0">You swear to see when gazing in my eyes!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio</i> (<i>responsively</i>). </p> +<p class="p0">My Porzia!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia.</i></p> +<p class="p5">No, no! I'll not forgive you!</p> +<p class="p0">For is it not ill boding to our bridals</p> +<p class="p0">You quarrel over the heavens—and not me!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>As he laughs.</i></p> +<p class="p0">My beauty, he says, this husband I have taken,</p> +<p class="p0">Is life—and yet ere 'tis an hour his</p> +<p class="p0">Forgets to live on it!—and Osio,</p> +<p class="p0">The brother of him,—</p> +<p class="p0">E'en Osio there—</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio</i> (<i>gay again</i>). </p> +<p class="p0">Who swears he will protect you!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Osio starts.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia.</i></p> +<p class="p0"> Protect?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio.</i> </p> +<p class="p3">Against the heresy of robes</p> +<p class="p0"> Of pagan fashion—and against your husband!</p> + +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Constraint. Porzia sees Bianca flush.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia.</i></p> +<p class="p0">I do not understand—unless you jest,</p> +<p class="p0">As oft—too oft you do!</p> +<p class="p0">Or mean perchance Bianca ... unto whom</p> +<p class="p0">He was betrothed</p> +<p class="p0">And whom he would, this breath,</p> +<p class="p0">Be wooing again, were <i>I</i>, not <i>words</i>, your bride!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Then winningly again, as Marina enters.</i></p> +<p class="p0">But see, here is Marina! the dance awaits!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Music is heard.</i></p> +<p class="p0"> Let us go in and give ourselves to Joy,</p> +<p class="p0">For Misery is quick enough to take us,</p> +<p class="p0">If first we do not wed us to her rival!</p> +<p class="p0">Is it not so?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio</i> (<i>with passion</i>). </p> +<p class="p0">Or sun has never shone!</p> +<p class="p0">So in! the tarantelle! (<i>as Tasso enters</i>) And then a song</p> +<p class="p0">From Messer Tasso, who would be divine,</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Greets him.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Did he love Venus as he fears the Church,</p> +<p class="p0">Apollo as he shuns the Inquisition!</p> +<p class="p0">In!—Osio, will you come?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Osio.</i></p> +<p class="p6">I will not.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio.</i></p> +<p class="p9">Then</p> +<p class="p0">Dance with your own mad humors and delusions</p> +<p class="p0">Here to Vesuvius and to the sea,—</p> +<p class="p0">Or to Bianca plead your pardon!</p> +<p class="p0">(<i>To the rest</i>) Come!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Seizes blossoms blithely.</i></p> +<p class="p0">For in this world there's but one heresy,</p> +<p class="p0">Denial of the divinity of Joy!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Throws sprays over Porzia, takes her hand and they go singing. All +follow, but Osio and Bianca.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Osio</i> (<i>when their steps have died; in cold rage</i>).</p> +<p class="p0">You shall hear more of this, my pretty brother!</p> +<p class="p0"> Prater of pagan doubts!</p> +<p class="p0">Whom—but that God may use it—I would curse</p> +<p class="p0">For the resemblance that our mother gave us!</p> +<p class="p0">For, by the living blood of San Gennaro,</p> +<p class="p0">In yon Duomo, the scoffing siren song</p> +<p class="p0">Of heresy that swells in you shall cease,</p> +<p class="p0">Tho it shall take the sweat of the rack to hush it!</p> +<p class="p0">You shall hear more!...</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Bianca</i> (<i>who has stood long indignant</i>).</p> +<p class="p0">And others shall hear more!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Her voice breaking as she turns on him.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Others who fix upon me this affront</p> +<p class="p0">Of broken and humiliate betrothals!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>As he attempts to speak.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Yes! you have made of me a thing of shame</p> +<p class="p0">Here in the eyes</p> +<p class="p0">Of those who're alien to me!</p> +<p class="p0">That you have loved me not—or love me less</p> +<p class="p0">Than once you did, too well I came to know—</p> +<p class="p0">I—with the blood in me of the Medici!—</p> +<p class="p0">And now it is open prate!... But do you think</p> +<p class="p0">The women of my city want resentment,</p> +<p class="p0">Or less than these sun-lusting ones of Naples</p> +<p class="p0">Know how to cool their wrath?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Osio.</i></p> +<p class="p7">I think you mad—</p> +<p class="p0">In a mad maze—</p> +<p class="p0">And yield it no concern;</p> +<p class="p0">Nor shall—(<i>meaningly</i>) until a thing you know is done.</p> +<p class="p0">As to betrothals, give your memory breath:</p> +<p class="p0">Ours was agreed to end as either willed.</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Goes from her to gate and looks expectantly out.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Bianca</i> (<i>as he returns</i>).</p> +<p class="p0">And you, weary of it, have utterly</p> +<p class="p0">Chosen to end it?</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Sits.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Osio.</i></p> +<p class="p6">Have I so affirmed?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Bianca</i> (<i>springing up</i>).</p> +<p class="p0">I will not have evasions, Osio!</p> +<p class="p0">Shiftings and turnings</p> +<p class="p0">Radiant of hopes</p> +<p class="p0">That torture expectation till it breaks.</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Again sitting.</i></p> +<p class="p0">And yet—perchance it is as well they come</p> +<p class="p0">Now ... while there yet is time for more withdrawals.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Osio</i> (<i>starting</i>).</p> +<p class="p0">More?</p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Bianca.</i></p> +<p class="p2"> For—I fear all trust in you is folly;</p> +<p class="p0">And that the heresy of Rizzio</p> +<p class="p0">Which I agreed with you to take unto</p> +<p class="p0">Monsignor Querio—</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Osio</i> (<i>clenching</i>).</p> +<p class="p7">Shall not be taken?</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>She rises.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Not! but you leave the brunt to me alone?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Bianca.</i></p> +<p class="p0">You purpose more, I think, than to restrain him.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Osio.</i></p> +<p class="p0">And you more than abjuring! You would gaze</p> +<p class="p0"> Upon his godless schisms, ...</p> +<p class="p0">Upon the naked luring of his lies!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Bianca.</i></p> +<p class="p0">No! Tho the beauty of them—</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Osio.</i></p> +<p class="p8">Beauty! beauty!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Striking the Pan near him.</i></p> +<p class="p0">That wind of infidelity from Hell</p> +<p class="p0">He blows out of his lips do you call beauty!</p> +<p class="p0">No!—and he with his poets and philosophers,</p> +<p class="p0">His Platos</p> +<p class="p0">And star-mad Copernicas,</p> +<p class="p0">And that Dominican, Giordano Bruno,</p> +<p class="p0">For whom the stake to flames will yet be lit,</p> +<p class="p0">Shall learn you are too late in your relenting!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Bianca</i> (<i>stricken</i>).</p> +<p class="p0">Too ... late!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Osio.</i></p> +<p class="p3">His heresies shall reap their due.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Bianca</i> (<i>death-pale</i>).</p> +<p class="p0">Which means—that you</p> +<p class="p0">already have revealed them!</p> +<p class="p0">Have sent unto Monsignor Querio</p> +<p class="p0">To-day—</p> +<p class="p0">Rizzio's wedding-day!—</p> +<p class="p0">For that</p> +<p class="p0">It was you sought out Matteo, who, pledged</p> +<p class="p0">Unto Marina,</p> +<p class="p0">As were you to me,</p> +<p class="p0">Has broke his troth?...</p> +<p class="p0">And now, now you await him?—O was not</p> +<p class="p0">Your promise to me that a week should pend</p> +<p class="p0">Ere any step?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Osio.</i></p> +<p class="p5">I will not lose my soul,</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Turns away.</i></p> +<p class="p0">And dallying is the feebleness of fools.</p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Bianca.</i></p> +<p class="p0">And will lies save it—tho they be for Heaven!—</p> +<p class="p0">To one who nigh has lost her soul for you?</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>When he does not answer, more penetratively.</i></p> +<p class="p0">We have been friends, Osio, long been friends,</p> +<p class="p0">And, woman that I am, I would 'twere more,</p> +<p class="p0">But in this I suspect—</p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Osio.</i></p> +<p class="p7">Enough! we prate!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Rankling, uneasily.</i></p> +<p class="p0">I say enough.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Bianca.</i></p> +<p class="p5">And I say all too little,</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Bitterly.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Until I tell you now plain to your face,</p> +<p class="p0">And to your heart</p> +<p class="p0">Plunging toward this passion,</p> +<p class="p0">That not alone a hate of heresy</p> +<p class="p0">Is haunting you to it, but that the lips</p> +<p class="p0">And eyes and brows and soul of—</p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Osio.</i></p> +<p class="p8">Will you cease!</p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Bianca.</i></p> +<p class="p0">I tell you that you love her—Porzia!</p> +<p class="p0">And veer but to the vision of her face!</p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Osio</i> (<i>who after strangling silence finds words</i>).</p> +<p class="p0">If you say that, Bianca, ever again</p> +<p class="p0">Or if, by all the demons that Avernus</p> +<p class="p0">Pours out upon the black Phlegraean fields,</p> +<p class="p0">You hint it or suggest it to her, till—</p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Bianca.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Till you achieve her! and have wrapped the rites</p> +<p class="p0">Of the Church round your achieving?</p> +<p class="p0">Till you have severed her from Rizzio—</p> +<p class="p0">Have swept her from perdition—</p> +<p class="p0">Into your swathing arms! I say you shall not!</p> +<p class="p0">Me you have set aside, but there an end!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Starts toward door.</i></p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Osio.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Stop! whither do you go?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Bianca.</i></p> +<p class="p7">To call them! call!</p> +<p class="p0">And to betray your treachery—and mine!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Calling.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Rizzio! Porzia! Rizzio!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Osio.</i></p> +<p class="p7">Maledictions!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Seizing her wrists.</i></p> +<p class="p0"> Will you become a dagger, and not know,</p> +<p class="p0">Stiletto that you are, what thing you stab!</p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Bianca.</i></p> +<p class="p0">The infatuation festering within you!</p> +<p class="p0">Till, deaf with the desire of it and dream,</p> +<p class="p0">You cannot tell their voice from Deity's.</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Calls again.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Rizzio! Porzia! Tasso!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>The music ceases.</i></p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Rizzio</i> (<i>within; startled</i>).</p> +<p class="p7">It was Bianca!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Hastening to door with the rest crowding closely after.</i></p> +<p class="p0">How? what? you called? what moves you?—Osio?</p> +<p class="ralign20"> [<i>Looks around.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Was some one here? what is it? speak!... Bianca?</p> +<p class="p0">What burns you?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Bianca.</i></p> +<p class="p4">You shall hear! It must be told.</p> +<p class="p0">Yes, yes!... (<i>Struggling to say it</i>) ...</p> +<p class="p0">And with no leavening delay of words.</p> +<p class="p0">We ... I ... You must be gone from here at once;</p> +<p class="p0">At once—for there is peril.</p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Rizzio.</i></p> +<p class="p8">Pah-ho! peril?</p> +<p class="p0">Now, Scylla and the Sibyl and Charybdis!</p> +<p class="p0">What megrim have you had?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Bianca.</i></p> +<p class="p7">None—for doubting;</p> +<p class="p0">Or any, it matters not, if you will go,</p> +<p class="p0">And quickly, trusting reason—as you boast to;</p> +<p class="p0">For I have heard—</p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Rizzio.</i></p> +<p class="p5">Have heard what and from whom?</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Again looks around.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Bianca.</i></p> +<p class="p0">There was one here who said Monsignor Querio</p> +<p class="p0">Knows of your excommunicant delight</p> +<p class="p0">In books that are forbid—</p> +<p class="p0">And ... of your heresies!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia</i> (<i>in quick dismay</i>).</p> +<p class="p7">The Inquisition!</p> +<p class="p0">You mean—he may be sought by it and seized,</p> +<p class="p0">Held in the trammels of it for a truth</p> +<p class="p0">That ...! Do you mean, Bianca, Osio,</p> +<p class="p0">That now, at any hour—?... Oh, he must go!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Hears noise at gate.</i></p> +<p class="p0">And quickly! In, Rizzio, in, for they—!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>The gate opens and Matteo entering stops amazed and alarmed.</i></p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Rizzio</i> (<i>with laughing relief</i>).</p> +<p class="p0">Now, now, do you not see your apprehension!</p> +<p class="p0">Is Matteo the Inquisition! Is</p> +<p class="p0">He then the prison that has come to seize me?</p> +<p class="p0">Fie, fie, Bianca, with your fears that mar</p> +<p class="p0">Again the bridal beauty of this hour,</p> +<p class="p0">And crowd with quiverings the bliss of it!</p> +<p class="p0">No more of them!—(<i>to dancers</i>) Hither! and wind your maze!</p> +<p class="p0">Again take up the dance!</p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Porzia.</i></p> +<p class="p7">No, Rizzio, no!</p> +<p class="p0">For now delight would die under our feet,</p> +<p class="p0">And we but trample on it! No! Dismiss them</p> +<p class="p0">Back now to Capri!...</p> +<p class="p0">More than the woman fear within me warns it.</p> +<p class="p0">For you have been o'er bold—not vainly, nay,</p> +<p class="p0">For truth, I know, must dare—but there may be</p> +<p class="p0">More in this than you think.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio.</i></p> +<p class="p7">And ere it rises</p> +<p class="p0">I cravenly must quench the altar-fires</p> +<p class="p0">That I attend—and our half-wedded joys?</p> +<p class="p0">No! no! More revels!</p> +<p class="p0"> Till we shall utterly uncloud our bliss</p> +<p class="p0">And leave remembrance not a stain upon it!</p> +<p class="p0">A song, Tasso, a song!</p> +<p class="p0">The taunting one that swept us into laughter!</p> +<p class="p0">How runs it? did it not begin with Naples?</p> +<p class="p0">(<i>Recalls it.</i>)</p> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="p2">Naples sins and Torre pays,</p> +<p class="p3">(Torre del Greco!)</p> +<p class="p2">Who fears the earthquake all her days!</p> +<p class="p3">(Torre del Greco!)</p> +<p class="p2">Who....</p> +</div> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Forgets.</i></p> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="p2">Who sits beneath Vesuvius</p> +<p class="p2">And shrives the castaways of us!</p> +<p class="p2">Naples sins and Torre pays,</p> +<p class="p3">(Torre del Greco!)</p> +</div> +<p class="p0">On, on with it! Come Porzia!—On, on.</p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Tasso</i> (<i>who has stood shrinking</i>).</p> +<p class="p0">Ah, Signor, no; I fear; I cannot; pray</p> +<p class="p0">Your pardon. I must go.</p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Rizzio.</i></p> +<p class="p7">Go!</p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Tasso.</i></p> +<p class="p8">I would not</p> +<p class="p0">Offend the Church—who is the Bride of Christ.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio</i> (<i>unaffected</i>).</p> +<p class="p0">Then off with you, unworthy follower</p> +<p class="p0">Of Virgil,</p> +<p class="p0">And of fire-veined Ariosto,—</p> +<p class="p0">Of singers who have flung their hearts to courage,</p> +<p class="p0">As yet we shall fling ours! (<i>Tasso goes.</i>) For even Bianca</p> +<p class="p0">And Osio</p> +<p class="p0">Must rue now their alarm,</p> +<p class="p0">And help us back from it to revelry.</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>As he turns to them, then to all.</i></p> +<p class="p0">What, none of you? no heart of joy about me?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia</i> (<i>striving for abandon</i>).</p> +<p class="p0">Yes, Rizzio!... tho</p> +<p class="p0">I would have you fly;</p> +<p class="p0">For bodingly I breathe the breath of evil!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>With forced lightness.</i></p> +<p class="p0">A dance, then!</p> +<p class="p0">Again weave its delight!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Dancers show cheer.</i></p> +<p class="p0">For to your want mine is attuned, and what</p> +<p class="p0">Is music to it shall o'ermaster me!</p> +<p class="p0">And not alone my feet shall follow, but</p> +<p class="p0">The Truth you fly to will I wing to attain!—</p> +<p class="p0">Tho stars seem to my simple sight but candles</p> +<p class="p0">Upon the altar of God, I'll think them worlds,</p> +<p class="p0">If to your soul they seem so; and for the rest—</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>A knock brings consternation, this time to all. The dancers fall to +crossing themselves, some kneeling. As they do so the gate is thrown +open and Querio enters; he is followed by several guards.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Querio</i> (<i>advancing; amid awe</i>).</p> +<p class="p0">In the name of the</p> +<p class="p0">Vicar of God who sits at Rome,</p> +<p class="p0">And of the Holy Office, I arrest</p> +<p class="p0">The giver of these pagan rites and revels.</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Guards step to Rizzio's side; he stands speechless.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia</i> (<i>stunned</i>).</p> +<p class="p0">Oh, ... Oh!</p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Rizzio</i> (<i>hoarsely</i>).</p> +<p class="p0">And at whose urgence, my lord Prelate,</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Starts forward.</i></p> +<p class="p0">I ask you at whose urgence this is done!</p> +<p class="p0">This deed of churchly duty!... Yes, in justice</p> +<p class="p0">I seek; for there has been</p> +<p class="p0">Some traitor and perhaps a liar.—Osio?</p> +<p class="p0">Bianca? (<i>fiercely</i>) half, half I believe 't was you!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>All are appalled.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia.</i></p> +<p class="p0">No, no, Rizzio!... no!... what are you saying!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Restrainingly.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Will you requite injustice with a worse?</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>To Querio, who is unmoved.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Monsignor, this in truth is hunting haste,</p> +<p class="p0">To search him out</p> +<p class="p0">Upon his wedding-day,</p> +<p class="p0">And bind him with the very wreaths of it!</p> +<p class="p0">Could you not wait an eve, a night, until</p> +<p class="p0">To-morrow when his nuptials would be o'er!</p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Querio.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Who weds two brides is bigamist, Signora.</p> +<p class="p0">When he divorces heresy accuse me.</p> +<p class="p0">But now say your farewells,</p> +<p class="p0">And with a moment's privacy: that can</p> +<p class="p0">I grant, that and no more: the rest's with Rome.</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Retires to rear—as do all but the two.</i></p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Porzia</i> (<i>whom dread now begins to overwhelm</i>).</p> +<p class="p0">My Rizzio! my own! I cannot bear it!</p> +<p class="p0">O why did you not go, delaying till</p> +<p class="p0">This fate has fallen</p> +<p class="p0">Now like a pall upon us!</p> +<p class="p0">I fear! I fear!...</p> +<p class="p0">To be so wedded, ere I am a wife,</p> +<p class="p0">Here in this city of dark lawless passions!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Unrestrainedly.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Ah, can you not recant?</p> +<p class="p0">Deny at once and so—</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio.</i></p> +<p class="p7">Porzia!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia.</i></p> +<p class="p9">Nay!</p> +<p class="p0">And yet to have you leave me—</p> +<p class="p0">Ere any nuptial night has hung our couch,</p> +<p class="p0">Ere I have lain beside you in the dark</p> +<p class="p0">And like Madonna dreamed of motherhood!</p> +<p class="p0">Ah, ah, I cannot!...</p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Rizzio</i> (<i>with a thought</i>).</p> +<p class="p6">Then—listen to me.</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Osio starts, watching him.</i></p> +<p class="p0">I will return to you!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia.</i></p> +<p class="p7">Return?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio.</i></p> +<p class="p9">Perchance.</p> +<p class="p0">It may be. For with florins to the guard—</p> +<p class="p0">With friendly gold—</p> +<p class="p0">May he not be persuaded</p> +<p class="p0">To bring me hither to you, for an hour</p> +<p class="p0">At midnight—tho it be but for an hour?</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>They look at each other.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Querio</i> (<i>suspiciously, coming down</i>).</p> +<p class="p0">Enough, Signor; the hour is running late.</p> +<p class="p0">And there are here, may be,</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Sinisterly.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Some who are avid now to be at vespers.</p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Porzia</i> (<i>embracing Rizzio</i>).</p> +<p class="p0">Then go, my lord; farewell, and fear not for me,</p> +<p class="p0">Since I shall toil only for your release.</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>He goes, with Querio and guard. Porzia quails, then lets Marina lead +her into the house. All follow but Bianca, Osio, and Matteo at gate.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Bianca</i> (<i>as the twilight begins, to Osio</i>).</p> +<p class="p0">Now that you have achieved so much, what more?</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>He does not answer; she also turns into house.</i></p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Osio</i> (<i>whom a turmoil of passions is tearing</i>).</p> +<p class="p0">What more?... God in His Heaven shall decide!...</p> +<p class="p0">Doubts have I had—like swine of hell within me—</p> +<p class="p0">But now He shall decide—</p> +<p class="p0">If she's to be the mother of heretics ...</p> +<p class="p0">Or if I, who acclaim the Creed, shall have her!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Calls.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Matteo!</p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Matteo.</i></p> +<p class="p4">Signor—(<i>advancing</i>) here.</p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Osio.</i></p> +<p class="p7">You have done well.</p> +<p class="p0">And from to-night I take you to my service,</p> +<p class="p0">With wages that shall gild you from a want,</p> +<p class="p0">And with the benediction of the Church.</p> +<p class="p0">But there is one thing more:</p> +<p class="p0">Follow Monsignor Querio to the prison,</p> +<p class="p0">Then to Signora Porzia return—</p> +<p class="p0">And say her husband sent you</p> +<p class="p0">To bid her be in the bower there at midnight.</p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Matteo</i> (<i>staring</i>).</p> +<p class="p0">But Signor, will she come?</p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Osio.</i></p> +<p class="p7">Say that she is</p> +<p class="p0">To speak no word—but keep to silence: go.</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>With fixed face, when the latch clicks behind him.</i></p> +<p class="p0">God shall decide, ...</p> +<p class="p0">For if she does not know</p> +<p class="p0">My arms from <i>his</i>, then, it shall be a sign</p> +<p class="p0">That to them and my bed ... she was predestined.</p> + +<p class="ralign20">[<i>The dark grows. He turns soon to go, and the curtain falls.... But +rises again at once and it is midnight; with only dim lights from the +silent, sleeping city. As it does so Porzia with Marina comes out of the +house. They pause and listen, Marina half-anxiously.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia</i> (<i>drawing free</i>).</p> +<p class="p0">Return and have no fear, he soon will come,</p> +<p class="p0">And bade me be alone there in the bower.</p> +<p class="p0">The night is like a spell to draw him to me.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Marina.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Signora—!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia.</i></p> +<p class="p4">Like a spell of living love.</p> + +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Crosses over, as one in a dream, and enters the bower. Marina goes, +the gate opens, and Osio silently enters, coming down into the bower +amorously. A long silence ... then slowly the <span class="smcap">Curtain</span>.</i></p> + +</div> + + +<h2><span >ACT II</span></h2> + + +<p class="center1"><span class="smcap1">A Year Has Elapsed</span></p> + + +<div class="box"> +<p class="indh"><span class="smcap">Scene:</span> <i>A sala, or hall, in the house of Rizzio. Its spacious walls and +ceiling are frescoed with Virgilian scenes of a simpler and more +beautiful kind than was usual to the decaying art of the period, and its +high-arched open doors in the rear look out upon the terrace of Act I, +toward the city, the Bay, Vesuvius—the whole magic curve of the +haunting coast.</i></p> + +<p><i>Several antique terminal-statues, the bodies of which end strangely in +their pedestals, stand on either side these doors, and about the hall a +Venus and other rare objects of virtu recovered from the past are +mingled with the furnishings of the room, which, arranged for joy and +beauty, seems somehow sad when unoccupied, as now, tho the Neapolitan +sun is shining brightly in from the blue</i>.</p> + +<p><i>An arrased doorway right leads thro a passage to the street gate, and +one left to the penetralia of the house, from which Marina enters deeply +troubled. She looks back, shakes her head, saying, "O my poor lady!" +then crosses to door right, listens, and hearing nothing goes slowly to +door rear, where she waits, singing sadly</i>:</p></div> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="p2">Shepherds down the mountain wind,</p> +<p class="p4">Wild pipes play in the street.</p> +<p class="p2"> O Sicily, my Sicily,</p> +<p class="p4">I long for thee, my Sweet!</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="p2">Once a year God takes his joy,</p> +<p class="p4">And that great joy is Spring,</p> +<p class="p2">He weds earth clad in blossom-robes,</p> +<p class="p4">For His enrapturing!</p> +</div> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>She stops, listening, then resumes</i>:</p> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="p2">Once a year God takes his joy,</p> +<p class="p4"> And that—</p> +</div> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>She stops again hearing sounds at the gate, then is startled to +paleness by the voice of Matteo; and as she listens a stern strong +determination takes her.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Matteo.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Basta! am I to pass! son of a dog!</p> +<p class="p0">Snout of a swine! knave! door-bestriding fool!</p> +<p class="p0">Have I not matters to her from my master,</p> +<p class="p0">To the Signora, from her husband's brother?</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>A scuffle.</i></p> +<p class="p0">The Devil's scullion feed you</p> +<p class="p0">On flame, until your liver shrivels black!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>He has pushed past and enters the Hall insolently.</i></p> +<p class="p0">O-hé! who's here! I come from Signor Osio!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Sees Marina.</i></p> +<p class="p0">The little Sicilian? Luck then is my slave!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Going to her.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Well, pretty fig! my little red pomegranate!</p> +<p class="p0">My fair forbidden fruit—pluckt in the moon!</p> +<p class="p0">I've come ... (<i>stopped by her mien</i>) But,</p> +<p class="p4">Blood of the Holy Sepulchre!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Looks around uncertainly.</i></p> +<p class="p0">What thing has happened here?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Marina.</i> </p> +<p class="p7">That, Matteo,</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Speaks solemnly.</i></p> +<p class="p0"> Which yet I do not know, and which I pray</p> +<p class="p0">Madonna you may be as ignorant of.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Matteo.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Eh?... I, my beauty?</p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Marina.</i> </p> +<p class="p6">You—who left this house</p> +<p class="p0">A year ago to-night with Signor Osio,</p> +<p class="p0"> Left suddenly,</p> +<p class="p0">To serve his wealth and pleasure,</p> +<p class="p0">And who will leave it now as instantly,</p> +<p class="p0">If he is not in need—of absolution.</p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Matteo.</i></p> +<p class="p0"> Of ... (<i>starting</i>) absolution?</p> +<p class="p6">Body, now, of Bacchus!</p> +<p class="p0">Does he not go to the Mass—and if he does not</p> +<p class="p0">Am I a priest</p> +<p class="p0">To know his need of purging?</p> +<p class="p0"> Or if he sins must I be damned with him?</p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Marina.</i></p> +<p class="p0">No, so the way from it—</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Matteo.</i> </p> +<p class="p7">The way! the way!</p> +<p class="p0">I want no way, but in unto your mistress.</p> +<p class="p0">Am I not sent here to her with commands?</p> +<p class="p0">Ecco! and must I turn with them upon me,</p> +<p class="p0">And say a wench denied me?</p> +<p class="p0">Or that I feared</p> +<p class="p0">Perchance to catch the fever</p> +<p class="p0">Of heresy your master's shackled with?</p> +<p class="p0">Pah, but you jest, my ruby rose of Aetna—</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Insinuatingly.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Whom yet I will not say but I will wed,</p> +<p class="p0">Tho you are from that Paynim-breeding isle</p> +<p class="p0">Of Sicily. You jest: so, in with you.</p> +<p class="p0">I seek your lady.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Marina.</i> </p> +<p class="p6">Seek ... and shall find more.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Matteo.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">More! (<i>Struck by her tone</i>.) And from what and whom?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Marina.</i> </p> +<p class="p7">I wait Aloysius,</p> +<p class="p0">The leech.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Matteo.</i> </p> +<p class="p3">And that is what I am to fear?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Marina.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">The child is ill.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Matteo</i> (<i>starting</i>).</p> +<p class="p5"> The child!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Marina.</i></p> +<p class="p7"> My lady's child.</p> + +<p class="ralign20">[<i>With tenser solemnity.</i></p> + +<p class="p0"> For there has come of late into her mind</p> +<p class="p0">A dread that has dried life within her breasts.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Matteo</i> (<i>who pales</i>). </p> +<p class="p0">And am I God, woman, to keep dread from her?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Marina.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">Tending to it a strangeness comes upon her,</p> +<p class="p0"> And with the sudden seizure of it, fear—</p> +<p class="p0">Shudders of horror, instincts of some evil</p> +<p class="p0">That she somehow has suffered, or committed—</p> + +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Pauses.</i></p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Matteo</i> (<i>paler</i>). </p> +<p class="p0">What do you mean!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Marina.</i></p> +<p class="p5">As one within a trance.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Matteo.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">And do you mean—?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Marina.</i> </p> +<p class="p5">A mood seizes her flesh</p> +<p class="p0"> That creeps against her will whene'er unto her</p> +<p class="p0"> The little one is pressed.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Matteo</i> (<i>trembling</i>).</p> +<p class="p7">This is a lie!</p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Marina.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">She cannot look upon it, but with terror,</p> +<p class="p0"> That brings remorse</p> +<p class="p0">Awakening more terror!</p> +<p class="p0"> The blight of heresy, she strives to think</p> +<p class="p0"> Of her lord's heresy is sent upon her,</p> +<p class="p0"> Or of her own refusal, it may be,</p> +<p class="p0"> To wed the Convent, not the carnal world.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Matteo.</i></p> +<p class="p0"> To you she said this?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Marina.</i></p> +<p class="p6">Ah! and Madonna! her sleep!</p> +<p class="p0"> She walks with eyes wide open.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Matteo.</i> </p> +<p class="p8">I say you lie.</p> +<p class="p0"> You do! as if Eternity were not,—</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Seizes her wrist.</i></p> +<p class="p0"> To frighten me and Signor Osio!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Marina</i> (<i>coldly, stingingly</i>).</p> +<p class="p0">And yet you understand? ha, understand?</p> +<p class="p0"> And hoarsely stare at words upon my lips</p> +<p class="p0">That should be meaningless as moony madness?</p> +<p class="p0">You penetrate</p> +<p class="p0">What not the Pope himself,</p> +<p class="p0">Nor any could, but with a guilty knowledge?</p> +<p class="p0">There's villainy I say, and you are in it,</p> +<p class="p0">The tool of a blind villain, who should be</p> +<p class="p0"> Where now his brother rots, but that the Church</p> +<p class="p0">Is no more Christ's!</p> +<p class="p0">Ah, ah! my nails could tear</p> +<p class="p0">Your hated false caresses from my flesh,</p> +<p class="p0">Your kisses from my memory and fling them</p> +<p class="p0">Upon your wicked heart. And, for your master,</p> +<p class="p0">The Virgin strangle him! She—or another!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Meaningly.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Another!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Matteo</i> (<i>startled</i>). </p> +<p class="p4">What? what say you?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Marina.</i> </p> +<p class="p8">That—one—will!</p> +<p class="p0">For do not think such sins go unavenged.</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Starts to go.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Matteo.</i></p> +<p class="p0">I say, what do you hint! Stand! there is more!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Seizes her and clasps her to him.</i></p> +<p class="p0">More! and I'll have it, by the crater of Hell!</p> +<p class="p0">More—and your lips shall tell it with a kiss.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Marina.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">Off me! (<i>Struggling.</i>) And if you do not get from here—</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Breaks free.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Before Signora Bianca—</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Matteo.</i></p> +<p class="p8">Ah! Ahi!</p> +<p class="p0"> It has to do then with the Florentine?</p> +<p class="p0">Who is as pagan as that devil Venus,</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Points to statue.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Yet prates to priests as subtly as my master</p> +<p class="p0">Who will not play Love with her?</p> +<p class="p0">By the Passion and Blood of God, has she again</p> +<p class="p0">Gone jealous to Monsignor Querio,</p> +<p class="p0">To get undone the doors of the Inquisition,</p> +<p class="p0">So that your master ...? has she?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Marina.</i></p> +<p class="p8"> They are open!—</p> +<p class="p0">O would I who o'erheard might tell my lady!—</p> +<p class="p0">And Signor Rizzio goes free to-day!</p> +<p class="p0">Free to return here unto his own home!</p> +<p class="p0">Free to cast from him a year's ignorance,</p> +<p class="p0">A year's imprisonment beyond the pale</p> +<p class="p0">Of any word or message</p> +<p class="p0">And learn how on his wedding-day when he</p> +<p class="p0">Was seized and on his wedding-night when he</p> +<p class="p0">Expected to return.... At that you quail?</p> +<p class="p0">Begone then, or—</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Matteo</i> (<i>gnashing</i>).</p> +<p class="p5">The jealousy of women!</p> +<p class="p0">Their hearts are devil-pots that ever boil.—</p> +<p class="p0">But this is cud for Signor Osio,</p> +<p class="p0">So get you in at once unto your mistress</p> +<p class="p0"> And say—</p> + + +<p class="char2"><i>Enter</i> <span class="smcap">Bianca</span> <i>suddenly in agitation</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Bianca</i> (<i>looking about, with alarm</i>).</p> +<p class="p3">Where is my cousin? (<i>Calls</i>) Porzia! Porzia!—</p> +<p class="p0"> She must return at once—unto the child:</p> +<p class="p0">Her mood is perilous and must be pent.</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>As they stare.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Did you not see her? (<i>Impatient.</i>) Am I Proserpine</p> +<p class="p0">To make such gaping ghosts of you? I say,</p> +<p class="p0">Was she not here?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Marina.</i> </p> +<p class="p5">Signora—?</p> + + <p class="char"><i>Bianca.</i></p> +<p class="p8">She hung, haunted,</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Searching again.</i></p> +<p class="p0">By the child's cradle—there a little since,</p> +<p class="p0"> But suddenly rose up and fled from it,</p> +<p class="p0">Saying—she would wed death!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Marina.</i></p> +<p class="p7"> Wed death! Signora!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Bianca.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">Yes; I was near. Her words—that struck me stark.</p> +<p class="p0">I could not speak. Do you know aught of this,</p> +<p class="p0">You who have seen these dark distractions in her?</p> +<p class="p0">Or does this ... drone of Signor Osio?</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Toward Matteo.</i></p> +<p class="p0"> What brings him here?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Matteo.</i> </p> +<p class="p5">Marina there.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Bianca.</i> </p> +<p class="p9">Ha, yes!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>At door rear.</i></p> +<p class="p0">The honey from that flower—but what else?</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>At door right.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Marina, yes, for you have been with her</p> +<p class="p0">Too often under the moon, but there is more</p> +<p class="p0">Behind you than yourself. Your master has</p> +<p class="p0">Not sent you?</p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Matteo.</i></p> +<p class="p4">Yes, Signora. To your beauty</p> +<p class="p0">He sends salute; and to your lady cousin</p> +<p class="p0">Who ... O Signora, see! (<i>staring</i>) upon the terrace!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>He has broken off awestruck.</i></p> +<p class="p0">See, see! Oh, in her hand there is ... Oh!—oh!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>They turn and behold Porzia trancedly approaching, a stiletto before +her and her lips moving obliviously.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">And should I not, Madonna, if ... O should I?</p> +<p class="p0">Would you in heaven not assuage and shrive me?</p> +<p class="p0">Make the wound seem as holy as were Christ's?</p> +<p class="p0">Miraculously make—</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Bianca.</i> </p> +<p class="p6">Porzia!</p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Porzia.</i></p> +<p class="p8">Make—(<i>dazed</i>)</p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Bianca.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">Porzia, do you dream!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia</i> (<i>startled</i>). </p> +<p class="p7">Bianca! (<i>dropping blade</i>) You?</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>A pause.</i></p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Bianca.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">This speech to weapons! this distraction. What</p> +<p class="p0">And whence and why is it? Your child—</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia</i> (<i>quickly</i>). </p> +<p class="p9">Yes, yes!...</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>A little incoherent.</i></p> +<p class="p0">I went into the garden to wait Aloysius,</p> +<p class="p0">My uncle Aloysius, who is a leech.</p> +<p class="p0">I have not slept.... What is it I am saying?</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Seeing Matteo.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Is that one come to tell—</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Bianca.</i> </p> +<p class="p7">He is the servant—</p> +<p class="p0">Of Osio.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia</i> (<i>with recoil</i>).</p> +<p class="p4">Of Osio?... Of Osio?</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Trembling.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Matteo.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">Signora, yes. He sends me with a message.</p> +<p class="p0">He begs that he may see you.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia.</i> </p> +<p class="p8">See?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Matteo.</i> </p> +<p class="p9">Implores</p> +<p class="p0">That this strange shrinking from him and aversion,</p> +<p class="p0">This pale ... and unintelligible ... repulsion</p> +<p class="p0">You have of late—</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia.</i> </p> +<p class="p5">Go back to him! go, go!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Struggling: with solemn abhorrence.</i></p> +<p class="p0">And say I cannot see him. He is my brother,</p> +<p class="p0">My husband's brother,</p> +<p class="p0">Whom I pray to honor.</p> +<p class="p0">And is much like my husband:</p> +<p class="p0">A likeness that unreasonably, it may be,</p> +<p class="p0">I shudder to look upon: and yet—</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Matteo.</i> </p> +<p class="p9">He bade me</p> +<p class="p0">To say, Signora, nothing must prevent;</p> +<p class="p0">That it concerns—</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia.</i> </p> +<p class="p5">See him I will not, ever!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>With utter repugnance.</i></p> +<p class="p0">And cannot and should not tho he sought me in</p> +<p class="p0">That time which lies beyond eternity,</p> +<p class="p0">That space which is beyond the brink of all.</p> +<p class="p0">What thing it is haunting his heart I know not.</p> +<p class="p0">But in his presence all my flesh becomes</p> +<p class="p0">A shudder of horror,</p> +<p class="p0">All my soul a fear.</p> +<p class="p0">My husband's brother is he, my poor husband's,</p> +<p class="p0">But he.... Go, go!... and tell him that strange drawings</p> +<p class="p0">And strange repulsions pass the hearts of those</p> +<p class="p0">Whom grief has gathered upon; and that I who</p> +<p class="p0">Upon my wedding-day had torn from me—</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Suddenly, uncontrollably.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Say, say I would he were not on the earth!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Bianca</i> (<i>amazed, suspicious</i>). </p> +<p class="p0">Porzia! what is this!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia.</i> </p> +<p class="p6">I know not: go!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>He goes, then Marina, fearful. An over-fraught pause.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Bianca</i> (<i>at length, jealously</i>). </p> +<p class="p0">For this there is a reason—and but one.</p> +<p class="p0">You love, you love him!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia.</i> </p> +<p class="p6">Love ... whom?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Bianca.</i></p> +<p class="p8">Osio!</p> +<p class="p0">Yet dare not so you draw him with denials,</p> +<p class="p0">Knowing that to repel is to entrain him.</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>As Porzia stares, stupefied.</i></p> +<p class="p0">O mockery of it! fools my eyes were, fools,</p> +<p class="p0">That stood within my head and did not see!</p> +<p class="p0">To me he spoke of love—yearning for you,</p> +<p class="p0">And in me heard but echoes of you ... ever!</p> +<p class="p0">Yet, since you loved him,</p> +<p class="p0">Why unto his brother,</p> +<p class="p0">A heretic o'erturning God with stars,</p> +<p class="p0">Did you—</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia</i> (<i>sinking to a divan</i>). </p> +<p class="p3">I pray you speak things possible,</p> +<p class="p0">Tho to your sight I seem and to my own</p> +<p class="p0">Like one unnatural beyond belief!</p> +<p class="p0">A child I have whom fever now is burning,</p> +<p class="p0">A husband all unhallowed in a prison ...</p> +<p class="p0">Tho to my dreams last night he seemed to come.</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Bianca starts.</i></p> +<p class="p0">And so you must forgive me if blind shrinkings,</p> +<p class="p0">That to your sight seem semblances of love,</p> +<p class="p0">Unhelpably o'ertake me.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Bianca.</i></p> +<p class="p8">Then—confess</p> +<p class="p0">Why Osio seeks you and why so you shun him?</p> +<p class="p0">And with the child why are your ways so wild?</p> +<p class="p0">You fear sometimes to touch it,</p> +<p class="p0">As if it were another's, or at your breast</p> +<p class="p0">Could only drink of horror.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia</i> (<i>rising</i>).</p> +<p class="p8">Ah!... ah, ah!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Bianca.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">Love is it, love, I say, of Osio,</p> +<p class="p0">That motherhood itself cannot amend,</p> +<p class="p0">And Rizzio shall hear of it—this day.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia.</i></p> +<p class="p0">He ... there in the darkness ... can hear naught!</p> +<p class="p0">Leave me, I pray, to wait Aloysius.</p> +<p class="p0">Why comes he not?... Ah, and why do you rend me?</p> +<p class="p0">For you would not indeed to Rizzio</p> +<p class="p0">Add demon doubts ...</p> +<p class="p0">Of me who am to him there in the night</p> +<p class="p0">Sun, moon and the white galaxy of stars</p> +<p class="p0">Such as not even Messer Bruno dreams....</p> +<p class="p0">For, if you would, are you indeed Bianca</p> +<p class="p0">Who, as a child, sang with me under the olives</p> +<p class="p0">And cypresses; or watched with wonder eyes</p> +<p class="p0">The fisherman draw marvels from the deep,</p> +<p class="p0">Then homeward wing at eve to Ischia?</p> +<p class="p0">I cannot think it!... yet ...!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Again distraught.</i></p> +<p class="p0">O what is it I dread! what thing has changed</p> +<p class="p0">All natural thoughts within me to repugnance,</p> +<p class="p0">All instincts and desires into terror?</p> +<p class="p0">I cannot touch my flesh, but I turn cold</p> +<p class="p0">As if I had touched pollution, cannot press</p> +<p class="p0">My child unto my breasts, but ... true, Oh, true!...</p> +<p class="p0">A madness whispers in me, "Take it away!"</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Staring, hauntedly.</i></p> +<p class="p0">And too, and too ... in solitude the want</p> +<p class="p0">Of Rizzio imprisoned comes to me;</p> +<p class="p0">Yet when I reach for him I seem enclasped</p> +<p class="p0">By unknown arms ... in the sere dark, that ... Oh!</p> +<p class="p0">Now, now I feel them! off!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>A knock at the gate.</i></p> +<p class="p6">(<i>Starting</i>)Ah, ah, Aloysius!...</p> +<p class="p0">With healing! he at last! (<i>moving toward door</i>) Uncle, the child—</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Stops rooted to the floor for Osio has suddenly entered. He does not +speak, nor she, but only Bianca, who looks at them, uttering his name +then turning goes.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Osio</i> (<i>at length, tortured</i>).</p> +<p class="p0">You shut me from your presence and your doors,</p> +<p class="p0">My messages return to me unopened,</p> +<p class="p0">My messengers unhonored—yet I've come,</p> +<p class="p0">For speak to you I must, and utterly!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia</i> (<i>gazing</i>).</p> +<p class="p0">Lord Jesu!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Osio.</i></p> +<p class="p4">Ai, Lord Jesu! let Him hear!</p> +<p class="p0">For if ever He huddled in a Manger,</p> +<p class="p0">Or hung, a red atonement, on the Cross—</p> +<p class="p0">If you are not soul-bound to heresy,</p> +<p class="p0">You must....</p> + + <p class="char"> <i>Porzia.</i></p> +<p class="p3">Oh, oh! why are you here?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Osio.</i> </p> +<p class="p9">Why?... Peace!</p> +<p class="p0">Can you not listen to me without terror</p> +<p class="p0">Not look upon me</p> +<p class="p0">Without eyes where awe</p> +<p class="p0">Sits like a murdered thing, or without hands</p> +<p class="p0">That flutter at your heart unfalteringly?</p> +<p class="p0">I am your brother.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia.</i></p> +<p class="p6">I ... will hold you so.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Osio.</i></p> +<p class="p0">But more than sister are you to my breast.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">Ah!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Osio.</i> </p> +<p class="p2">More, and I would save you from the flames</p> +<p class="p0">That bind you to a heretic and Hell.</p> +<p class="p0">Nay, stay! do not start from me; stay, do not!</p> +<p class="p0">But hear me, for not that alone has led me,</p> +<p class="p0">Not that alone,</p> +<p class="p0">But love unbearable—</p> +<p class="p0">Such as not any lips in all the world</p> +<p class="p0">Have sung, or any famed for it have breathed</p> +<p class="p0">Upon the pagan pages of a book:</p> +<p class="p0">For they were heathen all, in penance now</p> +<p class="p0">Upon the sulphur winds that sweep Inferno,</p> +<p class="p0">While I—</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia</i> (<i>whose look stops him</i>). </p> +<p class="p3">While, you, you, inordinate,</p> +<p class="p0">Speak baseness so unto your brother's wife?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Osio.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">His, no! no more! no more! for heresy</p> +<p class="p0">Has rent from him all rights, therefore I dare</p> +<p class="p0">To hunger for you, and to pledge the Pope</p> +<p class="p0">Will grant us dispensation—</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia.</i> </p> +<p class="p8">Oh! Oh, oh!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Overwhelmed with loathing.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Osio.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">You will not heed it, will not come with me?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">Madonna, wash his words out of my brain,</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Her hands lifted.</i></p> +<p class="p0">And from my memory purge their pollution!</p> +<p class="p0">(<i>To him</i>) Go, go!...</p> +<p class="p0">And may the poison of you never pass</p> +<p class="p0">Across my sight again.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Osio.</i></p> +<p class="p7">It will—to save you,</p> +<p class="p0">For mine you are—God wills it!—and ... have been!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Oh!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Osio.</i></p> +<p class="p2">Have!—it was predestined—by His breath.</p> +<p class="p0">Was he to see you mate a heretic,</p> +<p class="p0">Or from your body spring the Anti-Christ?</p> +<p class="p0">A year ago you wedded one, and I</p> +<p class="p0">Was ready with the hands of the Inquisition.</p> +<p class="p0">They seized him with his pagan pride upon him,</p> +<p class="p0">And from this house of feasting and of flowers</p> +<p class="p0">He went. You had a message brought from Matteo</p> +<p class="p0">Saying he would return to you at midnight.</p> +<p class="p0">I came, and in the darkness of the bower,</p> +<p class="p0">Which God made darker,</p> +<p class="p0">You took my arms for his!—were mine, were mine!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia</i> (<i>who has sunk to a seat, rising</i>).</p> +<p class="p0">Never!—But now I know what I have feared,</p> +<p class="p0">What dread it is invisibly has bound me—</p> +<p class="p0">Invisibly, unvariably!... I know,</p> +<p class="p0">And so shall break it!</p> +<p class="p0">Your thought has been to shadow me about</p> +<p class="p0">With this unceasing thing, to make me so</p> +<p class="p0">Believe—and so obtain me!</p> +<p class="p0">Your voice, eyes, lips and being with this purpose</p> +<p class="p0">Have held my soul unswervably to fear,</p> +<p class="p0">But now it is free! free, free!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Osio.</i> </p> +<p class="p8">And will be when</p> +<p class="p0">Rizzio comes?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia.</i> </p> +<p class="p5">Rizzio?</p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Osio.</i> </p> +<p class="p8">Out of prison?</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>As she gazes at him.</i></p> +<p class="p0">I tell you the child is mine! for Rizzio</p> +<p class="p0">Returned not to you. Mine, mine, and you must</p> +<p class="p0">Protect it and yourself.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia.</i> </p> +<p class="p7">From—?... do you mean?</p> +<p class="p0">O do you mean that he may come? that you</p> +<p class="p0">Expect him, O and soon? and that Bianca—?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Osio.</i></p> +<p class="p0">I mean no mysteries, but that the child</p> +<p class="p0">Is mine—</p> +<p class="p0">And you may be—</p> +<p class="p0">And all be well.</p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Porzia.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">But he will come? you have some intimation?</p> +<p class="p0">Some waft of his release, some prescience?</p> +<p class="p0">But say it and I will forgive you all!</p> +<p class="p0">Say that my arms once more shall clasp him to me!</p> +<p class="p0">Say that my heart once more shall beat to his!</p> +<p class="p0">Say that my eyes once more shall drink the dawn</p> +<p class="p0">From his, and I—</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Osio.</i> </p> +<p class="p5">Be still. For if you will not</p> +<p class="p0">Now, now be mine, one thing must be assured</p> +<p class="p0">Beyond the sway of peril:</p> +<p class="p0">It must be kept from him there is a child.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">Never! but I will lay it in his arms,</p> +<p class="p0">Unto the cradle of his bosom bring it—</p> +<p class="p0">While I have hands of purity to lift it—</p> +<p class="p0">And—</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Osio.</i> </p> +<p class="p2">Have him fling it forth? Hush! what is here?</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>A knocking at the gate: amazed cries: then Rizzio's voice.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">Rizzio! Rizzio! Rizzio!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio</i> (<i>without</i>). </p> +<p class="p7">Porzia! Porzia!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>He enters, weak and worn, in tattered raiment, and comes down to where +she gazes too overcome to embrace him.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">My Porzia! (<i>With a clasp.</i>) O do I look upon you,</p> +<p class="p0"> Not on some prison vision that will vanish</p> +<p class="p0">Between my arms to nothingness of air?</p> +<p class="p0">Some wan and hollow haunting of the night?</p> +<p class="p0">Look up into my soul and speak to me</p> +<p class="p0">With eyes that are incarnate songs of love!</p> +<p class="p0">Ah, what, you cannot?</p> +<p class="p0">The swiftness of my coming has undone you?</p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Porzia.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">No, no!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio.</i> </p> +<p class="p3">Then give reality to dreams,</p> +<p class="p0">Linking your lips to mine!... Oh, oh! at last!</p> +<p class="p0">At last I know I live</p> +<p class="p0">And am more than</p> +<p class="p0">A madness in miasmic night immured!</p> +<p class="p0"> And that eternity of want can end—</p> +<p class="p0"> Upon your breast—within this house where—(<i>Seeing Osio</i>) You?</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>With inexplicable antagonism.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Osio.</i></p> +<p class="p0"> I ... and I have no welcome for you, knowing</p> +<p class="p0">That heresy is still hot in your heart.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio.</i></p> +<p class="p0">For which you with accursčd joy are glad?...</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Osio goes rankling into garden.</i></p> +<p class="p0"> What does he here, my Porzia? what does he?</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Troubled.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Has he been much with you? Sometimes there in</p> +<p class="p0">My fetters I have fought strange dreams of him,</p> +<p class="p0"> Battled against him as against a brood</p> +<p class="p0">Of elemental horrors and contagion.</p> +<p class="p0"> Yet when I would awake—</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia</i> (<i>clinging fearfully</i>). </p> +<p class="p7">My Rizzio!...</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">Ai, yours! when hope was darkest, when the links</p> +<p class="p0">Of wolvish steel were feeding on my bone.</p> + +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Holds out wrists.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Or like a python wound me as I slept.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">The pity of my heart and lips shall heal them.</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>With caresses.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio.</i></p> +<p class="p0">They and the passion of you, and the peace</p> +<p class="p0">And beauty of your body and your soul,</p> +<p class="p0">That were torn from me at the very altar,</p> +<p class="p0">But now—purer for waiting—shall be mine.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia</i> (<i>trembling</i>). </p> +<p class="p0">Yes, yes, Rizzio!</p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Rizzio.</i></p> +<p class="p5">Say, say it again!</p> +<p class="p0"> For oh, the jealous fears that have defiled me,</p> +<p class="p0">The visions I have called a lie in vain,</p> +<p class="p0">The hot hands I have seen laid on your beauty!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>To her look of helplessness.</i></p> +<p class="p0">O say it! for you gaze—as if you could not!</p> +<p class="p0">As if ... O what is wringing you! You can</p> +<p class="p0">Not say it—that no arms but mine have held you,</p> +<p class="p0">No lips but mine have ever lingered, ever—?</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>A pitiful cry of distress breaks from within, then a hurry of feet and +Marina rushes on anguished.</i></p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Marina.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">My lady! O my lady!... the child! the child!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia</i> (<i>swaying</i>). </p> +<p class="p0">What is it? Speak!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Marina.</i></p> +<p class="p5">My lady, it is dead!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>A wild pause.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Dead? dead? my child? my little one? my own?</p> +<p class="p0">My baby?... Oh; oh, oh!... oh, oh, oh, oh!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>She stretches her arms distractedly before her and goes.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio</i> (<i>who has staggered, dazed, and is frenziedly realizing</i>). </p> +<p class="p0">God, God, the madness ... is this then the madness....</p> +<p class="p0">At last!...</p> +<p class="p0">Her child? her child? and I—never a husband?</p> +<p class="p0"> She has a child and I am childless! I!...</p> +<p class="p0">Have I been tricked, beaten, betrayed, undone,</p> +<p class="p0">Duped by a lie of low inconstancy.</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>To Marina.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Speak, quean!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Marina.</i> </p> +<p class="p3">O sir, I know not what to say!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">Tho truth bays wild, fool-face!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Marina.</i> </p> +<p class="p7">Sir, sir, I cannot!</p> +<p class="p0">But hold, I pray you! for she is ... she ... Ah!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Has cried out, for the curtains have parted and Porzia is +entering—the dead child in her arms, her eyes gazing sightlessly.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio</i> (<i>who looks at her, racked, laughs wildly, then rushes to door</i>). </p> +<p class="p0">At last, at last the heretic's in Hell!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Breaks past Aloysius entering, and is gone.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Marina</i> (<i>to the leech</i>). </p> +<p class="p0">O Signor Aloysius, my poor, poor lady!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Weeping.</i></p> +<p class="p0">My lady! O what now, what now shall heal her!</p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Aloysius.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">Go in, prepare her bed, and I will bring her.</p> +<p class="p0">In, in, I say! (<i>as she goes; to the mother</i>) Porzia!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Gently.</i></p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>She does not answer.</i></p> +<p class="p0"> Come, Porzia!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia.</i> </p> +<p class="p4">Yes, yes; is the grave ready?</p> +<p class="p0">Then let the clod fall softly, and the shroud</p> +<p class="p0"> Not wake him, for he sleeps. And let there be</p> +<p class="p0">Some orange blossoms too ... some orange blossoms!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>She permits him to lead her in, still gazing before her.</i></p> + +<p class="indh"><span class="smcap">Curtain.</span></p> + +</div> + + +<h2><span >ACT III</span></h2> + +<p class="center1"><span class="smcap1">Night of the Next Day</span></p> + +<div class="box"> +<p class="indh"><span class="smcap">Scene:</span> <i>The terrace of Act I, but lit wanly now by the moon, whose sheen +is cast like a pall over the city and kindles the Bay to quivering +silver. Thro the open door of the house and from the window of Porzia's +chamber which is just above the image of the Virgin, light falls +streaming toward the Pan and toward the deeply shadowed bower. A stone +seat is set to the front centre.</i></p> + +<p><i>Osio, haunted and desperate, stands without the bower, watching Matteo +who is stealthily coming down from the pedestal of the Virgin where he +has climbed to listen, and who crosses the terrace to him.</i></p> +</div> + +<div class="poem"> + +<p class="char"><i>Osio.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Her words! give me her words—and them alone!</p> +<p class="p0">What were they?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Matteo.</i></p> +<p class="p4">I could learn no more, Signor.</p> +<p class="p0">The fever is tossing her.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Osio.</i></p> +<p class="p7">To peril of death?</p> +<p class="p0">She is sinking now down into ceaseless Hell,</p> +<p class="p0">Where he shall follow?</p> +<p class="p0">Is swooning low to it?</p> +<p class="p0">And to eternal flame?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Matteo.</i></p> +<p class="p7">I do not know.</p> +<p class="p0">But burningly she sleeps. (<i>Uneasily.</i>) Shall we not go?</p> + +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Looks around.</i></p> +<p class="p0">For if we here are found—</p> + +<p class="char"> <i>Osio.</i> </p> +<p class="p7">They have not brought her</p> +<p class="p0">The Sacrament?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Matteo.</i></p> +<p class="p5">No priest is there, Signor.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Osio.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">The child, she asks for it?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Matteo.</i></p> +<p class="p7">I seemed to hear</p> +<p class="p0">Signora Bianca say that since the morning</p> +<p class="p0">When it was borne in secret to the tomb</p> +<p class="p0">She has not.</p> +<p class="p0">But still her moan's of Signor Rizzio,</p> +<p class="p0">Who has not yet returned, tho still they seek him.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Osio</i> (<i>bitterly</i>). </p> +<p class="p0">Her blood be on his head! upon his head!</p> +<p class="p0">And not on mine, that has not swayed to schism,</p> +<p class="p0">If death is calling now for her damnation.</p> +<p class="p0">No, I am pure of it!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Matteo.</i> </p> +<p class="p7">But should he come?</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Again looks around.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Osio.</i></p> +<p class="p0">I'll fear him not. Never! For odium</p> +<p class="p0">It were to God that I a moment should—</p> +<p class="p0">Him black with unbelief!</p> +<p class="p0">But come he will not ... since he left deluded.</p> +<p class="p0">Or if he should a voice has pledged to me</p> +<p class="p0">Full absolution if—</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Matteo.</i> </p> +<p class="p7">What, Signor?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Osio.</i> </p> +<p class="p9">Peace!</p> +<p class="p0">He will not. So again mount up!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Matteo</i> (<i>unwillingly</i>). </p> +<p class="p9">Signor!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Osio.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Mount, mount, and strain the most to get me more.</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Matteo loathly crosses and again ascends the pedestal. But scarcely +has done so when a knock comes at the gate. He steps down into the +shadow of the image—Osio into bower. Then Marina appears from the house +hesitantly.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Marina.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Who knocks? Signor Aloysius, is it you?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Aloysius.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">Ai, ai! and weary: open!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Being admitted.</i></p> +<p class="p8">This day! this day!</p> +<p class="p0">The search till he was found; and then the toil—</p> +<p class="p0">The patient physic poured</p> +<p class="p0">Vainly it seemed unto the proud or poor.</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Taking off medicine pouch.</i></p> +<p class="p0">But it at last is done. Now, the relief—</p> +<p class="p0">He came reluctant? and to her outpoured</p> +<p class="p0">A lava of wild purpose and revenge</p> +<p class="p0">When he was told?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Marina.</i></p> +<p class="p5">He? (<i>Staring.</i>) Signor Rizzio?</p> +<p class="p0">You have not brought him?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Aloysius.</i></p> +<p class="p6">Brought? Is he not here?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Marina</i> (<i>dismayed</i>). </p> +<p class="p0">Signor!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Aloysius.</i> </p> +<p class="p3">But how? but how? (<i>dropping pouch.</i>) Not he? and Bruno?</p> +<p class="p0">Who had been with him,</p> +<p class="p0">Whom he had but left</p> +<p class="p0">To search, sudden it seemed, for Osio?</p> +<p class="p0">Not Bruno! whom I pledged to find and lead him</p> +<p class="p0">Here to her—since we learned that Osio</p> +<p class="p0">Has fled from Naples?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Marina.</i></p> +<p class="p6">Signor, neither! none!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Involuntarily.</i></p> +<p class="p0">O he must come, or she will die!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Aloysius.</i></p> +<p class="p9">... Die?...</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Marina.</i></p> +<p class="p0">New evils gather ever in vendetta!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Aloysius.</i></p> +<p class="p0">You run from them too rapidly to death,</p> +<p class="p0">Which comes but when it will—and not from sleep</p> +<p class="p0">In which I left her.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Marina.</i></p> +<p class="p6">But her sleep has grown</p> +<p class="p0">To fever that has flowed into her brain!</p> +<p class="p0">Her heart is full of moans,</p> +<p class="p0">Her lips of murmurs!</p> +<p class="p0">She tore the crucifix from off her neck</p> +<p class="p0">And flung it from her, saying that it was</p> +<p class="p0">The arms of Osio; and then cried out</p> +<p class="p0">That she was virgin and immaculately</p> +<p class="p0">Had borne a child, that now was laid in the tomb,</p> +<p class="p0">But should arise again. Then would she start</p> +<p class="p0">And say there is no God, but only stars,</p> +<p class="p0">But stars, a heaven of stars! For which Signora</p> +<p class="p0">Bianca ignorant arose and chid her.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Aloysius.</i></p> +<p class="p0">And all unduly did! This must be stayed,</p> +<p class="p0">Not made immedicable.</p> +<p class="p0">Go in; prepare the herbs that I left with you.</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>She goes—as he stands pondering—past Bianca, who enters.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Bianca</i> (<i>pausing, then with resolute bitterness</i>).</p> +<p class="p0">So you have come and have not brought him? Well,</p> +<p class="p0">The insult of this secrecy must end,</p> +<p class="p0">The shrouding and affronting soil of it.</p> +<p class="p0">I'll sift in doubt no more, but have the truth.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Aloysius.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">Signora?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Bianca.</i> </p> +<p class="p4">O, fatality's in the world,</p> +<p class="p0">From atom to infinity it may be,</p> +<p class="p0">But there is also sinning. Which is this?</p> +<p class="p0">And whence is it</p> +<p class="p0">If she though sunk in sleep</p> +<p class="p0">Says ever "I must go into the bower!"</p> +<p class="p0">And ever with elusive lips "the bower!"</p> +<p class="p0">Whom would she meet?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Aloysius.</i> </p> +<p class="p5">The bower?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Bianca.</i></p> +<p class="p8">Whom! or if</p> +<p class="p0">No guilt is in her why this grievous haunting?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Aloysius.</i></p> +<p class="p0">I will go to her.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Bianca</i> (<i>angrily</i>). </p> +<p class="p6">So to evade confessing?</p> +<p class="p0">To avoid granting</p> +<p class="p0">That it is Osio?</p> +<p class="p0">That it is he has been her paramour?</p> +<p class="p0">That he it is has plundered her with passion—</p> +<p class="p0">Whose proof is the child</p> +<p class="p0"> Which Heaven has struck dead?</p> +<p class="p0">Will go? Nor first deny</p> +<p class="p0">That rightly Rizzio has turned from her</p> +<p class="p0">And now perchance is seeking Osio——</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Breaks off, for the gate opens and Rizzio slowly enters. A deadly +purpose is on him as he looks around.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio</i> (<i>at length</i>). </p> +<p class="p0">You clothe my thought,</p> +<p class="p0">Bianca, in the flesh</p> +<p class="p0">Of speech that I have shunned: but we shall know——</p> +<p class="p0">Soon know, for I have tracked him to this gate.</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>To Aloysius, solemnly.</i></p> +<p class="p0"> Where is he?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Aloysius</i> (<i>amazed</i>). </p> +<p class="p4">He?... Osio?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio.</i></p> +<p class="p7">So! reveal him!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Aloysius.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">But—this is error!... he is gone from Naples!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">Or wrapped in lies is hidden here for her?</p> +<p class="p0">By the very God of the world, I say—— (<i>With restraint.</i>) But ... no!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Aloysius.</i></p> +<p class="p0">And "no" until you trust it! For her fate</p> +<p class="p0">Is not as you suppose.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio.</i> </p> +<p class="p7">Nor his? Nor he!</p> +<p class="p0">This bigot whose religion's lechery?</p> +<p class="p0">This monk to whom licentiousness is God?</p> +<p class="p0">This monster I illimitably loathe?</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Searching as he speaks.</i></p> +<p class="p0">I say that he is here; that I will find him;</p> +<p class="p0">That, I have tracked him to you, and ... (<i>suddenly</i>) Aha!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Discovers Matteo under image.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Aha! from Naples he is gone? from Naples?</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Drawing Matteo forth.</i></p> +<p class="p0">But leaves his shadow here?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Matteo</i> (<i>terrified</i>). </p> +<p class="p7">Signor! Signor!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Cringes.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">From Naples he is sped, but at the feet</p> +<p class="p0">Of the Virgin he adores drops this devotion?</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Slowly, terribly.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Unpitiable toad—of filth begotten!</p> +<p class="p0">Pander who should go down into the Pit</p> +<p class="p0">And be the go-between of burning lusts,</p> +<p class="p0">Where lurks he?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Matteo.</i> </p> +<p class="p4">Signor! (<i>chokes</i>) Signor! I will show.</p> +<p class="p0">You shall have all; but let me live, Signor.</p> +<p class="p0">I have a father crippled who would starve</p> +<p class="p0">But for the gold I get....</p> +<p class="p0">And she, Signora Porzia's innocent.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">And virgin too! with that obliteration</p> +<p class="p0">You'll clothe her! Heaven's Queen, do I not know</p> +<p class="p0">What Nature and conception are!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Aloysius</i> (<i>trembling</i>). </p> +<p class="p9">Ai, so!</p> +<p class="p0">And of them there is no denial here.</p> +<p class="p0">That she has given birth, herself has told you,</p> +<p class="p0">Herself.... The child <i>was</i> hers, but——</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio.</i> </p> +<p class="p9">Born of miracles</p> +<p class="p0">And of imaginations and of dreams?</p> +<p class="p0">Is this Judea</p> +<p class="p0">And a day divine,</p> +<p class="p0"> Not Italy and unregeneration,</p> +<p class="p0">Where God deputes the world to Borgias?</p> +<p class="p0">The father of it was he—he and no other!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Aloysius.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">But in her innocence she—</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio.</i> </p> +<p class="p7">Yielded! Yielded!</p> +<p class="p0">And clung to him as the harlot moon to earth.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Aloysius.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">No, no!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio.</i> </p> +<p class="p3">Thro nights and nights!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Aloysius.</i> </p> +<p class="p7">Never; but duped</p> +<p class="p0"> And unaware she took his arms for yours,</p> +<p class="p0"> Believed, tho by yon moon, I know not how,</p> +<p class="p0"> Unless she was entranced,</p> +<p class="p0">That you had come to meet her in the bower,</p> +<p class="p0"> And——</p> + +<p class="char2"><span class="smcap">Marina</span> <i>enters suddenly terrified</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Marina.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">Signor! Signor Aloysius! O quick!</p> +<p class="p0">O come to her! She has arisen!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Aloysius.</i> </p> +<p class="p9">Risen!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Marina.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">O, in her sleep! and will not to her bed</p> +<p class="p0">Return, but says with eyes empty of sight</p> +<p class="p0">That it is time——</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Aloysius.</i> </p> +<p class="p5">For what?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Marina</i> (<i>hesitant, distressed</i>). </p> +<p class="p7">To ... meet him in</p> +<p class="p0">The bower!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Aloysius</i> (<i>quickly</i>). </p> +<p class="p4">I will come to her.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio</i> (<i>burningly</i>).</p> +<p class="p9">Ah! ah!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Starts before him.</i></p> +<p class="p0">And drug her now with opiates to prevent her?</p> +<p class="p0"> Or waken her and bid her to deny?</p> +<p class="p0">Did I not deem it? and will you feign further?</p> +<p class="p0">Did I not say that Osio is here?</p> +<p class="p0">There in the bower is he, there! and she</p> +<p class="p0">Has planned to meet him.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Marina.</i></p> +<p class="p6">Signor! no! no, no!</p> +<p class="p0">'Tis you that she would meet!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio.</i> </p> +<p class="p7">And not this croucher,</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Of Matteo.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Who is alone and purposeless? not he?</p> +<p class="p0">Nor him he pledges craven to reveal?</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Marina.</i></p> +<p class="p0">O, Signor, no!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio.</i></p> +<p class="p5">Lies! and a world of lies!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>His words writhing.</i></p> +<p class="p0">And now you shall not hold her: she shall come:</p> +<p class="p0">Shall go into the bower. She shall take him</p> +<p class="p0">Before your very breath unto her breast.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Marina.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">But, Signor, she is asleep.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio.</i> </p> +<p class="p8">Go, lead her.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Marina.</i> </p> +<p class="p9">She</p> +<p class="p0">Knows not what she is doing!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio.</i> </p> +<p class="p8">She shall learn!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Marina.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">O Signor, no, no, no!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio.</i> </p> +<p class="p7">I tell you, then,</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Starting toward house.</i></p> +<p class="p0">That truth is still my star, and that no shrinking</p> +<p class="p0">Shall stay me, tho all night contains would quench it.</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Is near door, when Porzia herself like a wraith appears—and at the +same time Osio is seen in the entrance to bower. Before Porzia's +sleep-fixed eyes Rizzio falls back: her somnambulant speech breaks +faintly.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia.</i></p> +<p class="p0">The night is as a spell. No more of physic.</p> +<p class="p0">Return unto your couch. The Inquisition?</p> +<p class="p0">To take him? from his very nuptials take him?</p> +<p class="p0">He is no bigamist, Monsignor Querio.</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Pauses.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Yes, Rizzio, at midnight!... Yes.—Ever</p> +<p class="p0">The arms of Osio round me instead!</p> +<p class="p0">This choking shroud of fever that defiles!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Moans, trying to throw it off.</i></p> +<p class="p0">But, peace; the child will wake. My little one,</p> +<p class="p0">My baby!... lift the candle to its face.</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Again moaning.</i></p> +<p class="p2">O that is Osio, not Rizzio,</p> +<p class="p0">I see within its eyes! Yet do not kill him,</p> +<p class="p0">No, Rizzio, do not kill him, tho he is</p> +<p class="p0">Your brother and has done it: I have borne</p> +<p class="p0">Too much and they would prison you again.</p> +<p class="p0">Or if they did not, still the stars we love</p> +<p class="p0">Must not turn into ... drops of bloody vengeance!—</p> +<p class="p0">But, peace to this! (<i>moves forward</i>) for it is time to meet him.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Marina</i> (<i>withholdingly</i>). </p> +<p class="p0">Signora!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia.</i> </p> +<p class="p4">Time to meet him in the bower.</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Is nearing it.</i></p> +<p class="p0">For now he is returned and all the night</p> +<p class="p0">Is like a spell to draw my soul unto him.</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>With Osio before her.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Yes, Rizzio, I come; you see, I ... I ...</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Is reaching her arms to him when a shudder takes her. Her hand goes up +to her brow and her gaze wanly flutters. Then suddenly her trance breaks +and she shrinks screaming.</i></p> + +<p class="char">It is not he! not Rizzio! Not he!</p> +<p class="p0">Marina! Bianca! Help! not he! help; help!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Sinks wildly back to the seat.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Marina</i> (<i>who runs to her</i>). </p> +<p class="p0">Signora, no! not he! not he! but we</p> +<p class="p0">Are here and he is come and you shall see him.</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Kneeling.</i></p> +<p class="p0">See, you have dreamed!...</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Aloysius</i> (<i>by her</i>).</p> +<p class="p5">And have awakened, Porzia,</p> +<p class="p0">Awakened from imaginings and terrors;</p> +<p class="p0">For you are ill....</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Marina.</i> </p> +<p class="p5">And knew not what you did!...</p> +<p class="p0">But now look round you and all shall be well.</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>She looks and, finding Rizzio, rises again bewildered.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Marina</i> (<i>who understands</i>). </p> +<p class="p0">It now is he, Signora; do not fear.</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">Rizzio! Rizzio! Rizzio!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio.</i> </p> +<p class="p7">Porzia!</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>He sobs.</i></p> + +<p class="char"><i>Porzia.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">O, is it dreams? I pray do not deceive me.</p> +<p class="p0">I think that it is he, but O so many</p> +<p class="p0">My thoughts have been and full of pain to me</p> +<p class="p0">That truth shall never more, alas, be true,</p> +<p class="p0">Or trust be ever utter trust again</p> +<p class="p0">Till peace has come to me as pure as that</p> +<p class="p0">To earth, from the rainbow's woven amulet</p> +<p class="p0">Upon the brow of God—peace wed to kindness.</p> +<p class="p0">And to deceive me now were less than kind!</p> + +<p class="char"><i>Rizzio.</i> </p> +<p class="p0">My Porzia! (<i>Falls weeping at her feet.</i>)</p> +<p class="p0">Deceit at last is o'er!</p> +<p class="p0">And not he, even he, who wrought this wrong</p> +<p class="p0">And who would forge that rainbow into fetters,</p> +<p class="p0">Till I could wish</p> +<p class="p0">The eternal tooth of pain</p> +<p class="p0">And of remorse should tear him—not he, now,</p> +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Rising; to Osio.</i></p> +<p class="p0">Shall turn my heart from love unto revenge.</p> +<p class="p0">But "pagan" tho I be, I bid him go!</p> + +<p class="ralign20">[<i>Points to gate, and Osio tortured, flings it open—and goes. Then when +Matteo has followed, Rizzio turns tenderly to Porzia. The horror falls +from her as he folds her finally to him—while the moon that had +clouded, shines on them bright and still.</i></p> + +<p class="center1"><b>THE END</b></p> +</div> + + + + +<h3><span >THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS<br /> +GARDEN CITY, N.Y.</span></h3> + + +<div class="adbox"> + +<p class="center2">FAR QUESTS<br /> +CALE YOUNG RICE</p> + +<p>The countrymen of Cale Young Rice apparently regard him as the equal of +the great American poets of the past. <i>Far Quests</i> is good +unquestionably. It shows a wide range of thought, and sympathy, and real +skill in workmanship, while occasionally it rises to heights of +simplicity and truth, that suggest such inspiration as should mean +lasting fame.—<i>The Daily Telegraph</i> (<i>London</i>).</p> + +<p>"Mr. Rice's lyrics are deeply impressive. A large number are complete +and full-blooded works of art."—<i>Prof. Wm. Lyon Phelps</i> (<i>Yale +University</i>).</p> + +<p>"<i>Far Quests</i> contains much beautiful work—the work of a real poet in +imagination and achievement."—<i>Prof. J. W. Mackail</i> (<i>Oxford +University</i>).</p> + +<p>"Mr. Rice is determined to get away from local or national limitations +and be at whatever cost universal.... These poems are always animated by +a force and freshness of feeling rare in work of such high +virtuosity."—<i>The Scotsman</i> (<i>Edinburgh</i>).</p> + +<p>"Mr. Cale Young Rice is acknowledged by his countrymen to be one of +their great poets. There is great charm in the nature songs (of this +volume) and of the East. Mr. Rice writes with great simplicity and +beauty."—<i>The Sphere</i> (<i>London</i>).</p> + +<p>"Mr. Rice's forte is a poetic drama. Yet in the act of saying this the +critic is confronted by such poems as <i>The Mystic</i>.... These are the +poems of a thinker, a man of large horizons, an optimist profoundly +impressed with the pathos of man's quest for happiness in all +lands."—<i>The Chicago Record-Herald.</i></p> + +<p>"Mr. Rice's latest volume shows no diminution of poetic power. Fecundity +is a mark of the genuine poet, and a glance through these pages will +demonstrate how rich Mr. Rice is in vitality and variety of thought.... +There is too, the unmistakable quality of style. It is spontaneous, +flexible, and strong with the strength of simplicity—a style of rare +distinction."—<i>Albert S. Henry</i> (<i>The Book News Monthly, +Philadelphia</i>).</p> + +</div> + + +<div class="adbox"> + +<p class="center2">THE IMMORTAL LURE<br/> +CALE YOUNG RICE</p> + +<p>It is great art—with great vitality. <i>James Lane Allen.</i></p> + +<p>In the midst of the Spring rush there arrives one book for which all +else is pushed aside.... We have been educated to the belief that a man +must be long dead before he can be enrolled with the great ones. Let us +forget this cruel teaching.... This volume contains four poetic dramas +all different in setting, and all so beautiful that we cannot choose one +more perfect than another.... Too extravagant praise cannot be given Mr. +Rice.—<i>The San Francisco Call.</i></p> + +<p>Four brief dramas, different from Paolo & Francesca, but excelling +it—or any other of Mr. Phillips's work, it is safe to say—in a vivid +presentment of a supreme moment in the lives of the characters.... They +form excellent examples of the range of Mr. Rice's genius in this +field.—<i>The New York Times Review.</i></p> + +<p>Mr. Rice is quite the most ambitious, and most distinguished of +contemporary poetic dramatists in America.—<i>The Boston Transcript</i> (<i>W. +S. Braithwaite.</i>)</p> + +<p>The vigor and originality of Mr. Rice's work never outweigh that first +qualification, beauty.... No American writer has so enriched the body of +our poetic literature in the past few years.—<i>The New Orleans +Picayune.</i></p> + +<p>Mr. Rice is beyond doubt the most distinguished poetic dramatist America +has yet produced.—<i>The Detroit Free Press.</i></p> + +<p>That in Cale Young Rice a new American poet of great power and +originality has arisen cannot be denied. He has somehow discovered the +secret of the mystery, wonder and spirituality of human existence, +which has been all but lost in our commercial civilization. May he +succeed in awakening our people from sordid dreams of gain.—<i>Rochester</i> +(<i>N. Y.</i>) <i>Post Express.</i> +</p> +<p>No writer in England or America holds himself to higher ideals (than Mr. +Rice) and everything he does bears the imprint of exquisite taste and +the finest poetic instinct.—<i>The Portland Oregonian.</i></p> + +<p>In simplicity of art form and sheer mystery of romanticism these poetic +dramas embody the new century artistry that is remaking current +imaginative literature.—<i>The Philadelphia North American.</i></p> + +<p>Cale Young Rice is justly regarded as the leading master of the +difficult form of poetic drama.—<i>Portland</i> (<i>Me.</i>) <i>Press.</i></p> + +<p>Mr. Rice has outlived the prophesy that he would one day rival Stephen +Phillips in the poetic drama. As dexterous in the mechanism of his art, +the young American is the Englishman's superior in that unforced quality +which bespeaks true inspiration, and in a wider variety of manner and +theme.—<i>San Francisco Chronicle.</i></p> + +<p>Mr. Rice's work has often been compared to Stephen Phillips's and there +is great resemblance in their expression of high vision. Mr. Rice's +technique is sure, ... his knowledge of his settings impeccable, and one +feels sincerely the passion, power and sensuous beauty of the whole. +"Arduin" (one of the plays) is perfect tragedy; as rounded as a sphere, +as terrible as death.—<i>Review of Reviews.</i></p> + +<p>The Immortal Lure is a very beautiful work.—<i>The Springfield</i> (<i>Mass.</i>) +<i>Republican.</i></p> + +<p>The action in Mr. Rice's dramas is invariably compact and powerful, his +writing remarkably forcible and clear, with a rare grasp of form. The +plays are brief and classic.—<i>Baltimore News.</i></p> + +<p>These four dramas, each a separate unit perfect in itself and differing +widely in treatment, are yet vitally related by reason of the one +central theme, wrought out with rich imagery and with compelling +dramatic power.—<i>The Louisville Times</i> (<i>U. S.</i>)</p> + +<p>The literary and poetical merit of these dramas is undeniable, and they +are charged with the emotional life and human interest that should, but +do not, always go along with those other high gifts.—<i>The</i> (<i>London</i>) +<i>Bookman.</i></p> + +<p>Mr. Rice never [like Stephen Phillips] mistakes strenuous phrase for +strong thought. He makes his blank verse his servant, and it has the +stage merit of possessing the freedom of prose while retaining the +impassioned movement of poetry.—<i>The Glasgow</i> (<i>Scotland</i>) <i>Herald.</i></p> + +<p>These firm and vivid pieces of work are truly welcome as examples of +poetic force that succeeds without the help of poetic license.—<i>The +Literary World</i> (<i>London.</i>)</p> + +<p>We do not possess a living American poet whose utterance is so clear, so +felicitous, so free from the inane and meretricious folly of sugared +lines.... No one has a better understanding of the development of +dramatic action than Mr. Rice.—<i>The Book News Monthly</i> (<i>Albert S. +Henry.</i>)</p> + +</div> +<div class="adbox"> + +<div class="adbox"> +<p class="center2"><span class="smcap">Country Life in America</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">The World's Work</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">The Garden Magazine</span><br /> +DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO., GARDEN CITY, N. Y.</p> +</div> + + + + +<p class="center2">MANY GODS<br /> +By<br /> +CALE YOUNG RICE</p> + +<p>"These poems are flashingly, glowingly full of the East.... What I am +sure of in Mr. Rice is that here we have an American poet whom we may +claim as ours."—<i>The North American Review</i> (<i>William Dean Howells</i>).</p> + +<p>"Mr. Rice has the gift of leadership ... and he is a force with whom we +must reckon."—<i>The Boston Transcript.</i></p> + +<p>... "We find here a poet who strives to reach the goal which marks the +best that can be done in poetry."—<i>The Book News Monthly</i> (<i>A. S. +Henry</i>).</p> + +<p>"When you hear the pessimists bewailing the good old time when real +poets were abroad in the land ... do not fail to quote them almost +anything by Cale Young Rice, a real poet writing to-day.... He has done +so much splendid work one can scarcely praise him too highly."—<i>The San +Francisco Call.</i></p> + +<p>"In 'Many Gods' the scenes are those of the East, and while it is not +the East of Loti, Arnold or Hearn, it is still a place of brooding, +majesty, mystery and subtle fascination. There is a temptation to quote +such verses for their melody, dignity of form, beauty of imagery and +height of inspiration."—<i>The Chicago Journal.</i></p> + +<p>"'Love's Cynic' (a long poem in the volume) might be by Browning at his +best."—<i>Pittsburg Gazette-Times.</i></p> + +<p>"This is a serious, and from any standpoint, a successful piece of work +... in it are poems that will become classic."—<i>Passaic</i> (<i>New Jersey</i>) +<i>News</i>.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Rice must be hailed as one among living masters of his art, one to +whom we may look for yet greater things."—<i>Presbyterian Advance.</i></p> + +<p>"This book is in many respects a remarkable work. The poems are indeed +poems."—<i>The Nashville Banner.</i></p> + +<p>"Mr. Rice's poetical plays reach a high level of achievement.... But +these poems show a higher vision and surer mastery of expression than +ever before."—<i>The London Bookman.</i></p> + +<p class="center2"><i>Net, $1.25</i> (<i>postage 12c.</i>)</p> +</div> + + + + +<div class="adbox"> + +<p class="center2">NIRVANA DAYS<br /> +Poems by<br /> +CALE YOUNG RICE</p> + +<p>"Mr. Rice has the technical cunning that makes up almost the entire +equipment of many poets nowadays, but human nature is more to him always +... and he has the feeling and imaginative sympathy without which all +poetry is but an empty and vain thing."—<i>The London Bookman.</i></p> + +<p>"Mr. Rice's note is a clarion call, and of his two poems, 'The Strong +Man to His Sires' and 'The Young to the Old,' the former will send a +thrill to the heart of every man who has the instinct of race in his +blood, while the latter should be printed above the desk of every minor +poet and pessimist.... The sonnets of the sequence, 'Quest and +Requital,' have the elements of great poetry in them."—<i>The Glasgow</i> +(<i>Scotland</i>) <i>Herald.</i></p> + +<p>"Mr. Rice's poems are singularly free from affectation, and he seems to +have written because of the sincere need of expressing something that +had to take art form."—<i>The Sun</i> (<i>New York</i>).</p> + +<p>"The ability to write verse that scans is quite common.... But the +inspired thought behind the lines is a different thing; and it is this +thought untrammeled—the clear vision searching into the deeps of human +emotion—which gives the verse of Mr. Rice weight and potency.... In the +range of his metrical skill he easily stands with the best of living +craftsmen ... and we have in him ... a poet whose dramas and lyrics will +endure."—<i>The Book News Monthly</i> (<i>A. S. Henry</i>).</p> + +<p>"These poems are marked by a breadth of outlook, individuality and +beauty of thought. The author reveals deep, sincere feeling on topics +which do not readily lend themselves to artistic expression and which he +makes eminently worth while."—<i>The Buffalo</i> (<i>N. Y.</i>) <i>Courier.</i></p> + +<p>"We get throughout the idea of a vast universe and of the soul merging +itself in the infinite.... The great poem of the volume, however, is +'The Strong Man to His Sires.'"—<i>The Louisville Post</i> (<i>Margaret S. +Anderson</i>).</p> + +<p>"The poems possess much music ... and even in the height of intensified +feeling the clearness of Mr. Rice's ideas is not dimmed by the obscure +haze that too often goes with the divine fire."—<i>The Boston Globe.</i></p> + +<p class="center2"><i>Paper boards. Net, $1.25</i> (<i>postage 12c.</i>)</p> +</div> + + + + +<div class="adbox"> + +<p class="center2">A NIGHT IN AVIGNON<br /> +By<br /> +CALE YOUNG RICE<br /> +<i>Successfully produced by Donald Robertson</i></p> + +<p>"It is as vivid as a page from Browning. Mr. Rice has the dramatic +pulse."—<i>James Huneker.</i></p> + +<p>"It embraces in small compass all the essentials of the drama."—<i>New +York Saturday Times Review</i> (<i>Jessie B. Rittenhouse</i>).</p> + +<p>"It presents one of the most striking situations in dramatic literature +and its climax could not be improved."—<i>The San Francisco Call.</i></p> + +<p>"It has undeniable power, and is a very decided poetic +achievement."—<i>The Boston Transcript.</i></p> + +<p>"It leaves an enduring impression of a soul tragedy."—<i>The Churchman.</i></p> + +<p>"Since the publication of his 'Charles di Tocca' and other dramas, Cale +Young Rice has justly been regarded as a leading American master of that +difficult form, and many critics have ranked him above Stephen Phillips, +at least on the dramatic side of his art. And this judgment is further +confirmed by 'A Night in Avignon.' It is almost incredible that in less +than 500 lines Mr. Rice should have been able to create so perfect a +play with so powerful a dramatic effect."—<i>The Chicago Record-Herald</i> +(<i>Edwin S. Shuman</i>).</p> + +<p>"There is poetic richness in this brilliant composition; a beauty of +sentiment and grace in every line. It is impressive, metrically pleasing +and dramatically powerful."—<i>The Philadelphia Record.</i></p> + +<p>"It offers one of the most striking situations in dramatic +literature."—<i>The Louisville Courier-Journal.</i></p> + +<p>"The publication of a poetic drama of the quality of Mr. Rice's is an +important event in the present tendency of American literature. He is a +leader in this most significant movement, and 'A Night in Avignon' is +marked, like his other plays, by dramatic directness, high poetic +fervor, clarity of poetic diction, and felicity of phrasing."—<i>The +Chicago Journal.</i></p> + +<p>"It is a dramatically told episode, and the metre is most effectively +handled, making a welcome change for blank verse, and greatly enhancing +the interest."—<i>Sydney Lee.</i></p> + +<p>"Many critics, on hearing Mr. Bryce's prediction that America will one +day have a poet, would be tempted to remind him of Mr. Rice."—<i>The +Hartford (Conn.) Courant.</i></p> + +<p class="center2"><i>Net 50c.</i> (<i>postage 5c.</i>)</p> +</div> + + + + +<div class="adbox"> + +<p class="center2">YOLANDA OF CYPRUS<br /> +A Poetic Drama by<br /> +CALE YOUNG RICE</p> + +<p>"It has real life and drama, not merely beautiful words, and so differs +from the great mass of poetic plays."—<i>Prof. Gilbert Murray.</i></p> + +<p><i>Minnie Maddern Fisk</i> says: "No one can doubt that it is superior +poetically and dramatically to Stephen Phillips's work," and that Mr. +Rice ranks with Mr. Phillips at his best has often been reaffirmed.</p> + +<p>"It is encouraging to the hope of a native drama to know that an +American has written a play which is at the same time of decided poetic +merit and of decided dramatic power."—<i>The New York Times.</i></p> + +<p>"The most remarkable quality of the play is its sustained dramatic +strength. Poetically it is frequently of great beauty. It is also lofty +in conception, lucid and felicitous in style, and the dramatic pulse +throbs in every line."—<i>The Chicago Record-Herald.</i></p> + +<p>"The characters are drawn with force and the play is dignified and +powerful," and adds that if it does not succeed on the stage it will be +"because of its excellence."—<i>The Springfield Republican.</i></p> + +<p>"Mr. Rice is one of the few present-day poets who have the steadiness +and weight for a well-sustained drama."—<i>The Louisville Post</i> +(<i>Margaret Anderson</i>).</p> + +<p>"It has equal command of imagination, dramatic utterance, picturesque +effectiveness and metrical harmony."—<i>The London (England) Bookman.</i></p> + +<p><i>T. P.'s Weekly</i> says: "It might well stand the difficult test of +production and will be welcomed by all who care for serious verse."</p> + +<p><i>The Glasgow (Scotland) Herald</i> says: "Yolanda of Cyprus is finely +constructed; the irregular blank verse admirably adapted for the +exigencies of intense emotion; the characters firmly drawn; and the +climax serves the purpose of good stagecraft and poetic justice."</p> + +<p>"It is well constructed and instinct with dramatic power."—<i>Sydney +Lee.</i></p> + +<p>"It is as readable as a novel."—<i>The Pittsburg Post.</i></p> + +<p>"Here and there an almost Shakespearean note is struck. In makeup, +arrangement, and poetic intensity it ranks with Stephen Phillips's +work."—<i>The Book News Monthly.</i></p> + +<p class="center2"><i>Net, $1.25</i> (<i>postage 10c.</i>)</p> + +</div> +<div class="adbox"> + +<p class="center2">DAVID<br /> +A Poetic Drama by<br /> +CALE YOUNG RICE</p> + +<p>"I was greatly impressed with it and derived a sense of personal +encouragement from the evidence of so fine and lofty a product for the +stage."—<i>Richard Mansfield.</i></p> + +<p>"It is a powerful piece of dramatic portraiture in which Cale Young Rice +has again demonstrated his insight and power. What he did before in +'Charles di Tocca' he has repeated and improved upon.... Not a few +instances of his strength might be cited as of almost Shakespearean +force. Indeed the strictly literary merit of the tragedy is altogether +extraordinary. It is a contribution to the drama full of charm and +power."—<i>The Chicago Tribune.</i></p> + +<p>"From the standpoint of poetry, dignity of conception, spiritual +elevation and finish and beauty of line, Mr. Rice's 'David' is, perhaps, +superior to his 'Yolanda of Cyprus,' but the two can scarcely be +compared."—<i>The New York Times</i> (<i>Jessie B. Rittenhouse</i>).</p> + +<p>"Never before has the theme received treatment in a manner so worthy of +it."—<i>The St. Louis Globe-Democrat.</i></p> + +<p>"It needs but a word, for it has been passed upon and approved by +critics all over the country."—<i>Book News Monthly.</i> And again: "But few +recent writers seem to have found the secret of dramatic blank verse; +and of that small number, Mr. Rice is, if not first, at least without +superior."</p> + +<p>"With instinctive dramatic and poetic power, Mr. Rice combines a +knowledge of the exigencies of the stage."—<i>Harper's Weekly.</i></p> + +<p>"It is safe to say that were Mr. Rice an Englishman or a Frenchman, his +reputation as his country's most distinguished poetic dramatist would +have been assured by a more universal sign of recognition."—<i>The +Baltimore News</i> (<i>writing of all Mr. Rice's plays</i>).</p> + +<p class="center2"><i>Net, $1.25</i> (<i>postage 12c.</i>)</p> +</div> + + + +<div class="adbox"> + +<p class="center2">CHARLES DI TOCCA<br /> +By<br /> +CALE YOUNG RICE</p> + +<p>"I take off my hat to Mr. Rice. His play is full of poetry, and the +pitch and dignity of the whole are remarkable."—<i>James Lane Allen.</i></p> + +<p>"It is a dramatic poem one reads with a heightened sense of its fine +quality throughout. It is sincere, strong, finished and noble, and +sustains its distinction of manner to the end.... The character of +Helena is not unworthy of any of the great masters of dramatic +utterance."—<i>The Chicago Tribune.</i></p> + +<p>"The drama is one of the best of the kind ever written by an American +author. Its whole tone is masterful, and it must be classed as one of +the really literary works of the season." (1903).—<i>The Milwaukee +Sentinel.</i></p> + +<p>"It shows a remarkable sense of dramatic construction as well as poetic +power and strong characterization."—<i>James MacArthur, in Harper's +Weekly.</i></p> + +<p>"This play has many elements of perfection. Its plot is developed with +ease and with a large dramatic force; its characters are drawn with +sympathy and decision; and its thoughts rise to a very real beauty. By +reason of it the writer has gained an assured place among playwrights +who seek to give literary as well as dramatic worth to their +plays."—<i>The Richmond (Va.) News-Leader.</i></p> + +<p>"The action of the play is admirably compact and coherent, and it +contains tragic situations which will afford pleasure not only to the +student, but to the technical reader."—<i>The Nation.</i></p> + +<p>"It is the most powerful, vital, and truly tragical drama written by an +American for some years. There is genuine pathos, mighty yet never +repellent passion, great sincerity and penetration, and great elevation +and beauty of language."—<i>The Chicago Post.</i></p> + +<p>"Mr. Rice ranks among America's choicest poets on account of his power +to turn music into words, his virility, and of the fact that he has +something of his own to say."—<i>The Boston Globe.</i></p> + +<p>"The whole play breathes forth the indefinable spirit of the Italian +renaissance. In poetic style and dramatic treatment it is a work of +art."—<i>The Baltimore Sun.</i></p> + +<p class="center2"><i>Paper boards. Net, $1.25</i> (<i>postage, 9c.</i>)</p> +</div> + + + + +<div class="adbox"> + +<p class="center2">SONG-SURF<br /> +(Being the Lyrics of Plays and Lyrics) by<br /> +CALE YOUNG RICE</p> + +<p>"Mr. Rice's work betrays wide sympathies with nature and life, and a +welcome originality of sentiment and metrical harmony."—<i>Sydney Lee.</i></p> + +<p>"In his lyrics Mr. Rice's imagination works most successfully. He is an +optimist—and in these days an optimist is irresistible—and he can +touch delicately things too holy for a rough or violent pathos."—<i>The +London Star</i> (<i>James Douglas</i>).</p> + +<p>"Mr. Rice's highest gift is essentially lyrical. His lyrics have a charm +and grace of melody distinctively their own."—<i>The London Bookman.</i></p> + +<p>"Mr. Rice is keenly responsive to the loveliness of the outside world, +and he reveals this beauty in words that sing themselves."—<i>The Boston +Transcript.</i></p> + +<p>"Mr. Rice's work is everywhere marked by true imaginative power and +elevation of feeling."—<i>The Scotsman.</i></p> + +<p>"Mr. Rice's work would seem to rank with the best of our American poets +of to-day."—<i>The Atlanta Constitution.</i> +</p> +<p>"Mr. Rice's poems are touched with the magic of the muse. They have +inspiration, grace and true lyric quality."—<i>The Book News Monthly.</i></p> + +<p>"Mr. Rice's poetry as a whole is both strongly and delicately spiritual. +Many of these lyrics have the true romantic mystery and charm.... To +write thus is no indifferent matter. It indicates not only long work but +long brooding on the beauty and mystery of life."—<i>The Louisville +Post.</i></p> + +<p>"Mr. Rice is indisputably one of the greatest poets who have lived in +America.... And some of these (earlier) poems are truly beautiful."—<i>The +Times-Union</i> (<i>Albany, N. Y.</i>).</p> + + +<p class="center2"><i>Net, $1.25</i> (<i>postage 12c.</i>)</p> +</div> + + + + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Porzia, by Cale Young Rice + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PORZIA *** + +***** This file should be named 34196-h.htm or 34196-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/1/9/34196/ + +Produced by David Garcia and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Kentuckiana Digital Library) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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