The Duke of Gandia

Algernon Charles Swinburne

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http://www.blackmask.com

  • SCENE I
  • SCENE II
  • SCENE III
  • SCENE IV


  • Transcribed from the 1908 Chatto and Windus edition by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk




    THE DUKE OF GANDIA




    PERSONS REPRESENTED.



    POPE ALEXANDER VI.
    
    FRANCESCO BORGIA, Duke of Gandia  }his sons
    CÆSAR BORGIA, Cardinal of Valencia }

    DON MICHELE COREGLIA, called MICHELOTTO, agent for Cæsar Borgia.
    GIORGIO SCHIAVONE, a Tiber waterman.

    TWO ASSASSINS.
    AN OFFICER of the Papal Household.

    VANNOZZA CATANEI, surnamed LA ROSA, concubine to the Pope.
    LUCREZIA BORGIA, daughter to Alexander and Vannozza.

    SCENE: ROME.
    TIME: JUNE 14—JULY 22, 1497.



    SCENE I



    The Vatican
    Enter
    CÆSAR and VANNOZZA

    CÆSAR

    Now, mother, though thou love my brother more,
    Am I not more thy son than he?

    VANNOZZA

          Not more.

    CÆSAR

    Have I more Spaniard in me—less of thee?
    Did our Most Holiest father thrill thy womb
    With more Italian passion than brought forth
    Me?

    VANNOZZA

       Child, thine elder never was as thou—
    Spake never thus.

    CÆSAR

          I doubt it not.  But I,
    Mother, am not mine elder.  He desires
    And he enjoys the life God gives him—God,
    The Pope our father, and thy sacred self,
    Mother beloved and hallowed.  I desire
    More.

    VANNOZZA

       Thou wast ever sleepless as the wind—
    A child anhungered for thy time to be
    Man.  See thy purple about thee.  Art thou not
    Cardinal?

    CÆSAR

       Ay; my father's eminence
    Set so the stamp on mine.  I will not die
    Cardinal.

    VANNOZZA

       Cæsar, wilt thou cleave my heart?
    Have I not loved thee?

    CÆSAR

          Ay, fair mother—ay.
    Thou hast loved my father likewise.  Dost thou love
    Giulia—the sweet Farnese—called the Fair
    In all the Roman streets that call thee Rose?
    And that bright babe Giovanni, whom our sire,
    Thy holy lord and hers, hath stamped at birth
    As duke of Nepi?

    VANNOZZA

          When thy sire begat
    Thee, sinful though he ever was—fierce, fell,
    Spaniard—I fear me, Jesus for his sins
    Bade Satan pass into him.

    CÆSAR

             And fill thee full,
    Sweet sinless mother.  Fear it not.  Thou hast
    Children more loved of him and thee than me—
    Our bright Francesco, born to smile and sway,
    And her whose face makes pale the sun in heaven,
    Whose eyes outlaugh the splendour of the sea,
    Whose hair has all noon's wonders in its weft,
    Whose mouth is God's and Italy's one rose,
    Lucrezia.

    VANNOZZA

       Dost thou love them then?  My child,
    How should not I then love thee?

    CÆSAR

             God alone
    Knows.  Was not God—the God of love, who bade
    His son be man because he hated man,
    And saw him scourged and hanging, and at last
    Forgave the sin wherewith he had stamped us, seeing
    So fair a full atonement—was not God
    Bridesman when Christ's crowned vicar took to bride
    My mother?

    VANNOZZA

          Speak not thou to me of God.
    I have sinned, I have sinned—I would I had died a nun,
    Cloistered!

    CÆSAR

       There too my sire had found thee.  Priests
    Make way where warriors dare not—save when war
    Sets wide the floodgates of the weirs of hell.
    And what hast thou to do with sin?  Hath he
    Whose sin was thine not given thee there and then
    God's actual absolution?  Mary lived
    God's virgin, and God's mother: mine art thou,
    Who am Christlike even as thou art virginal.
    And if thou love me or love me not God knows,
    And God, who made me and my sire and thee,
    May take the charge upon him.  I am I.
    Somewhat I think to do before my day
    Pass from me.  Did I love thee not at all,
    I would not bid thee know it.

    VANNOZZA

             Alas, my son!

    CÆSAR

    Alas, my mother, sounds no sense for men—
    Rings but reverberate folly, whence resounds
    Returning laughter.  Weep or smile on me,
    Thy sunshine or thy rainbow softens not
    The mortal earth wherein thou hast clad me.  Nay,
    But rather would I see thee smile than weep,
    Mother.  Thou art lovelier, smiling.

    VANNOZZA

             What is this
    Thou hast at heart to do?  God's judgment hangs
    Above us.  I that girdled thee in me
    As Mary girdled Jesus yet unborn
    - Thou dost believe it?  A creedless heretic
    Thou art not?

    CÆSAR

          I?  God's vicar's child?

    VANNOZZA

             Be God
    Praised!  I, then, I, thy mother, bid thee, pray,
    Pray thee but say what hungers in thy heart,
    And whither thou wouldst hurl the strenuous life
    That works within thee.

    CÆSAR

          Whither?  Am not I
    Hinge of the gate that opens heaven—that bids
    God open when my sire thrusts in the key—
    Cardinal?  Canst thou dream I had rather be
    Duke?

    Enter FRANCESCO

    FRANCESCO

       Wilt thou take mine office, Cæsar mine?
    I heard thy laugh deride it.  Mother, whence
    Comes that sweet gift of grace from dawn to dawn
    That daily shows thee sweeter?

    CÆSAR

             Knowest thou none
    Lovelier?

    VANNOZZA

       My Cæsar finds me not so fair.
    Thou art over fond, Francesco.

    CÆSAR

             Nay, no whit.
    Our heavenly father on earth adores no less
    Our mother than our sister: and I hold
    His heart and eye, his spirit and his sense,
    Infallible.

    Enter the POPE

    ALEXANDER

          Jest not with God.  I heard
    A holy word, a hallowing epithet,
    Cardinal Cæsar, trip across thy tongue
    Lightly.

    CÆSAR

       Most holiest father, I desire
    Paternal absolution—when thy laugh
    Has waned from lip and eyelid.

    ALEXANDER

             Take it now,
    And Christ preserve thee, Cæsar, as thou art,
    To serve him as I serve him.  Rose of mine,
    My rose of roses, whence has fallen this dew
    That dims the sweetest eyes love ever lit
    With light that mocks the morning?

    VANNOZZA

             Nay, my lord,
    I know not—nay, I knew not if I wept.

    ALEXANDER

    Our sons and Christ's and Peter's whom we praise,
    Are they—are these—fallen out?

    FRANCESCO

             Not I with him,
    Nor he, I think, with me.

    CÆSAR

          Forbid it, God!
    The God that set thee where thou art, and there
    Sustains thee, bids the love he kindles bind
    Brother to brother.

    ALEXANDER

          God or no God, man
    Must live and let man live—while one man's life
    Galls not another's.  Fools and fiends are men
    Who play the fiend that is not.  Why shouldst thou,
    Girt with the girdle of the church, and given
    Power to preside on spirit and flesh—or thou,
    Clothed with the glad world's glory—priest or prince,
    Turn on thy brother an evil eye, or deem
    Your father God hath dealt his doom amiss
    Toward either or toward any?  Hath not Rome,
    Hath not the Lord Christ's kingdom, where his will
    Is done on earth, enough of all that man
    Thirsts, hungers, lusts for—pleasure, pride, and power—
    To sate you and to share between you?  Whence
    Should she, the godless heathen's goddess once,
    Discord, heave up her hissing head again
    Between love's Christian children—love's?  Hath God
    Cut short the thrill that glorifies the flesh,
    Chilled the sharp rapturous pang that burns the blood,
    Because an hundred even as twain at once
    Partake it?  Boys, my boys, be wise, and rest,
    Whatever fire take hold upon your flesh,
    Whatever dream set all your life on fire,
    Friends.

    CÆSAR

       Friends?  Our father on earth, thy will be done.

    FRANCESCO

    Christ's body, Cæsar! dost thou mock?

    CÆSAR

             Not I.
    Hast thou fallen out with me, then, that thy tongue
    Disclaims its lingering utterance?

    ALEXANDER

          Now, by nought,
    As nought abides to swear by, folly seen
    So plain and heard so loud might well nigh make
    Wise men believe in even the devil and God.
    What ails you?  Whence comes lightning in your eyes,
    With hissing hints of thunder on your lips?
    Fools! and the fools I thought to make for men
    Gods.  Is it love or hate divides you—turns
    Tooth, fang, or claw, when time provides them prey,
    To nip, rip, rend each other?

    CÆSAR

             Hate or love,
    Francesco?

    FRANCESCO

          Why, I hate thee not—thou knowest
    I hate thee not, my Cæsar.

    CÆSAR

             I believe
    Thou dost not hate or love or envy me;
    Even as I know, and knowing believe, we all—
    Our father, thou and I—triune in heart—
    Hold loveliest of all living things to love
    This.

    Enter LUCREZIA

    LUCREZIA

    Mother!  What do tears and thou for once
    Together?  Rain in sunshine?

    VANNOZZA

             Ask thy sire,
    Am I not now the moon?  Saint Anna bore
    Saint Mary Virgin—did not God prefer
    The child, and thrust behind with scarce a smile
    The mother?

    ALEXANDER

          Thrust not out thy thorns at heaven,
    Rose.

    LUCREZIA

       But what ailed her?  And she will not say.

    CÆSAR

    Sister, I sinned—sin must be mine.  A word
    Fell out askance between us, and she wept
    Because our father chid us.

    LUCREZIA

             How should strife
    Find here a tongue to hiss with?  Are not we,
    Brothers and sire and sister, sealed of God
    Lovers—made one in love?

    ALEXANDER

             Deride not God,
    Lucrezia.

    LUCREZIA

       Father, dost thou fear him, then?

    ALEXANDER

    I say not and I know not if I fear.

    FRANCESCO

    Thou canst not.  Father, were he terrible,
    How long wouldst thou live—thou, his mask on earth?

    ALEXANDER

    Boy, art thou all a child?  What knew they more,
    The men that loved and feared and died for God,
    Than I and thou who know him not?  We know
    This life is ours, and sweet, if shame and fear
    Make us not less than man: and less were they
    Who crawled and writhed and cowered and called on God
    To save them from him.  Here I stand as he,
    God, or God's very figure wrought in flesh,
    More godlike than was Jesus.  Dare I fear
    Whipping and hanging?  Thou, my cardinal,
    Canst think not to be scourged and crucified—
    Ha?

    CÆSAR

       Nay: there lurks no God in me.  And thou,
    Father, dost thou fear?

    ALEXANDER

          I?  Nought less than God.
    But if we take him lightly on our lips
    Too light his name will sound in all men's ears
    Till earth and air, when man says God, respond
    Laughter.  Forbear him.

    CÆSAR

          Wisdom lives in thee,
    And cries not out along the streets as when
    None of God's folk that heard regarded her,
    As all that hear thy word regard—or die,
    Being not outside God's eyeshot.  Dost thou sleep
    Here in his special keeping—here—to-night,
    Brother?

    FRANCESCO

       What bids thee care to know?

    CÆSAR

             They say
    These holy streets of heaven's most holiest choice
    Lie dangerous now in darkness if a man
    Walk not on holiest errands.  Thou, they say,
    Wert scarce a Christlike sacrifice if slain.
    Too many dead flow down the Tiber's flow
    Nightly.  They say it.

    FRANCESCO

             I never called thee yet
    Fool.

    CÆSAR

       Ah, my lord and brother, didst thou now,
    Were this not thankless?  God—our father's God—
    Guide thee!  [Exit FRANCESCO.
       He goes, and thanks me not.  Our sire,
    What says the God that lives upon thy lips
    And withers in thy silence?

    LUCREZIA

          Vex him not,
    Cæsar.  Thou seest he is weary.

    ALEXANDER

             Yea.  Come ye
    With me.  Bethink thee, Cæsar.  Vex me not.

    Exeunt ALEXANDER, VANNOZZA, and LUCREZIA.

    CÆSAR

    Thou wilt not bid me this, I think, again,
    Father.

    Enter MICHELOTTO

       Thou art swift of speed at need.  I bade thee
    Abide my bidding.

    MICHELOTTO

          Till my lord were left
    Alone.

    CÆSAR

       Thou knewest it?

    MICHELOTTO

          Where my lord may be
    And what beseems his thrall to know of him
    I were not worthy, knew I not, to know.

    CÆSAR

    I do not ask thee where my brother sleeps.
    And where to-morrow sees him yet asleep—

    MICHELOTTO

    Ask of the fishers' nets on Tiber.

    CÆSAR

             Nay—
    Not I but Rome shall ask it.  Pass in peace.
    The benediction of my sire be thine.  [Exeunt.



    SCENE II



    A narrow street opening on the Tiber

    Enter MICHELOTTO and ASSASSINS

    MICHELOTTO

    Ye know the lordlier harlot's house—there?

    FIRST ASSASSIN

             Ay,
    Surely.

    MICHELOTTO

       The first whose foot comes forth is he.

    SECOND ASSASSIN

    How know we this?

    MICHELOTTO

          I know it.  Ye need but slay.
                [Exit.

    Enter FRANCESCO

    FRANCESCO (singing)

    Love and night are life and light;
       Sleep and wine and song
    Speed and slay the halting day
       Ere it live too long.

    FIRST ASSASSIN

    That shalt not thou.  Sing, whosoe'er thou be,
    Thy next of songs to Satan.
    [They stab him.

    FRANCESCO

          Dogs!  Ye dare?
    God!  Pity me!  God!  [Dies.

    SECOND ASSASSIN

          God receive his soul!
    This was a Christian: many a man I have slain
    Died with all hell between his lips.

    FIRST ASSASSIN

             Be thine
    Dumb.  Lift his feet as I the head.

    SECOND ASSASSIN

             A boy!
    And fair of face as angels

    FIRST ASSASSIN

             If the nets
    Snare not this fish betimes ere others feed,
    None that shall heave it airward for the sun
    To mock and mar shall say so.  Bring him down.
    Tiber hath fed on choicer fare than we
    May think to feed his throat with ere we die.
    [Exeunt with the body.



    SCENE III



    The Vatican

    ALEXANDER and LUCREZIA

    ALEXANDER

    The day burns high.  Thou hast not seen them—thou?

    LUCREZIA

    My brethren, sire?  Nay, not since yesternight.

    ALEXANDER

    The night is newly dead.  Since yestereven?

    LUCREZIA

    Nor then.  I saw them when we parted here
    Last.

    ALEXANDER

       I believe thou liest not.  Girl, the day
    Looks pale before thy glory.  Brow, cheek, eye,
    Lips, throat, and bosom, thou dost overshine
    All womanhood man ever worshipped.  Once
    I held thy mother fairest born of all
    That ever turned old Rome to heaven.  Thou hast read
    Her golden Horace?

    LUCREZIA

          Else were I cast out
    From all their choir who serve the Muses.

    ALEXANDER

             Ay.
    'Fair mother's fairer daughter,' dost thou deem
    That praise was ever merited as by thee?
    I cannot.

    LUCREZIA

       I concern myself no whit
    If so it were or were not.

    ALEXANDER

             Thou dost well.
    Thou hast not seen, thou sayest, Francesco?

    LUCREZIA

             Nay—
    Give me some reliquary to swear it on—
    Some rosary—crucifix or amulet,
    Sorcerous or sacred.

    ALEXANDER

          Never twins were born
    More like than thou and he—nor lovelier: yet
    No twins were ye.

    LUCREZIA

          What ails thy Holiness?

    ALEXANDER

    I am ill at ease: my heart is sick.  Last night
    No revel here was held, and yet the day
    Strikes heavier on me wearier, body and soul,
    Than though we had rioted out with raging mirth
    The lifelong length of darkness.

    LUCREZIA

             Evil hours
    Fret somewhiles all folk living; none sees why:
    No child sleeps always all night long.

    ALEXANDER

             Wast thou
    Wakeful?  No trouble clung about thee?  Nought
    Made the air of night heavier with presage felt
    As joy feels fear and withers?  I am not
    Afraid: methinks I am very fear itself.

    Enter an Officer of the household

    OFFICER

    His holiness be gracious towards me.

    ALEXANDER

             Speak.
    Thy face is death's: let death upon thy lips
    Live.

    OFFICER

       Sire, the humblest hireling knave in Rome—
    A waterman that plies his craft all night—
    Craves audience even of thee.

    ALEXANDER

          A Roman?

    OFFICER

             Nay.
    Some outlander—some Greek—they call the knave
    George the Slavonian.

    ALEXANDER

       They?

    OFFICER

             The fisherfolk
    On Tiber.

    ALEXANDER

       Bid him in: bid God himself
    Come in with doom upon me.  [Exit Officer.
             Hear'st thou, child—
    Daughter?

    LUCREZIA

       What horror hangs on thee?

    ALEXANDER

             Abide,
    And thou shalt know as I know.

    Enter GIORGIO SCHIAVONE

             Speak.  I say,
    Speak.  What thou art I know: and what I am
    Thou knowest—and yet thou knowest not.

    GIORGIO

          Holiest sire,
    Last night I kept my boat on Tiber—Sire,
    The thing I saw was nothing of my deed—
    It shook me out of sleep to see it—Lord,
    Have mercy: look not so upon me.

    ALEXANDER

             Dog,
    Speak, while thy tongue is thine.

    GIORGIO

          Two men came down
    And peered along the water-side: and two
    Came after—men whose eyes raked all the night,
    Searching the shore—I lay beneath my boat—
    Beside it on the darkling side—and saw.
    Then came a horseman—Sire, his horse was white—
    The moonshine made his mane like dull white fire—
    And on his crupper heavily hung a corpse,
    Arms held from swaying on this side, legs on that,
    I know not which on either—but the men
    Held fast that held: and hard on Tiber side
    They swung the crupper towards the water—sharp
    And swift as man may steer a horse—and caught
    And slung their dead into the stream: and he
    Drifted, and caught the moon across his face
    That shone like life against it: and the chief
    Till then sat silent as the moon at watch,
    And then bade hurl stones on the drifting dead
    And sink him out of sight; and seeing this done,
    Rode thence, and they strode after.

    ALEXANDER

             Man, and thou—
    Thou?

    GIORGIO

       Sire, I set my heart again to sleep:
    I turned and slept under my boatside.

    ALEXANDER

             Man—
    Dog—devil, if this be truth, and if my fear
    Lie not—how hadst thou heart to hold thy peace?
    How comes it that the warders of the shore
    Knew not of thee, while yet the crime was hot,
    What crime had made night hell?

    GIORGIO

          A thousand times
    I have seen such sights, but never till this hour
    Seen him who cared to hear of them.

    ALEXANDER

             Till now,
    Never.  He looks in God's mute face and mine,
    And says it.  God be good to me!  But God
    Will not—or is not.  Where is then thy dead,
    Devil, called of God from hell to smite—to scourge—
    Me?

    GIORGIO

       Sire, at hand I left him.

    ALEXANDER

             Stir not.  Bid
    Thy fellows bring my dead before me.  [Exit Officer.
                Nay,
    But mine it is not yet—it may not be
    Mine—while it may not be, it is not.  Child,
    It shall not be thy brother.  Pray no prayer.
    Prayer never yet brought profit.  Be not pale.
    Fear strikes more deep into the fearful heart
    The wound it heals not.

    Enter Officers with the body of FRANCESCO

          What is he they bring?
    O God!  Thou livest!  And my child is dead!
    [Falls.



    SCENE IV



    The Vatican

    ALEXANDER and CÆSAR

    ALEXANDER

    Thou hast done this deed.

    CÆSAR

       Thou hast said it.

    ALEXANDER

          Dost thou think
    To live, and look upon me?

    CÆSAR

             Some while yet.

    ALEXANDER

    I would there were a God—that he might hear.

    CÆSAR

    'Tis pity there should be—for thy sake—none.

    ALEXANDER

    Wilt thou slay me?

    CÆSAR

       Why?

    ALEXANDER

             Am not I thy sire?

    CÆSAR

    And Christendom's to boot.

    ALEXANDER

             I pray thee, man,
    Slay me.

    CÆSAR

          And then myself?  Thou art crazed, but I
    Sane.

    ALEXANDER

       Art thou very flesh and blood?

    CÆSAR

                They say,
    Thine.

    ALEXANDER

       If the heaven stand still and smite thee not,
    There is no God indeed.

    CÆSAR

             Nor thou nor I
    Know.

    ALEXANDER

       I could pray to God that God might be,
    Were I but mad.  Thou sayest I am mad: thou liest:
    I do not pray.

    CÆSAR

          Most holiest father, no.
    Thy brain is not so sick yet.  Thou and God
    Friends?  Man, how long would God have let thee live—
    Thee?

    ALEXANDER

       Long enough he hath kept me, to behold
    His face as fire—if his it be—and earth
    As hell—and thee, begotten of my loins,
    Satan.

    CÆSAR

          The firstfruits of thy fatherhood
    Were something less than Satan.  Man of God,
    Vaunt not thyself.

    ALEXANDER

             I would I had died in the womb.

    CÆSAR

    Thou shalt do better, dying in Peter's chair:
    Thou shalt die famous.

    ALEXANDER

          Ay: no screen from that,
    No shelter, no forgetfulness on earth.
    We shall be famed for ever.  Hell and night,
    Cover me!

    CÆSAR

       Hast thou heard that prayers are heard?
    Or hast thou known earth, for a man's cry's sake,
    Cleave, and devour him?

    ALEXANDER

             I have done this thing.
    Thou hast not done it: thy deed is none of thine:
    Upon my hand, upon my head, the blood
    Rests.

    CÆSAR

       Wilt thou sleep the worse for this next year?

    ALEXANDER

    I will not live a seven days' space beyond
    This.

    CÆSAR

       Thou hast lived thy seven days' space in hell,
    Father: they say thou hast fasted even from sleep.

    ALEXANDER

    Ay.

    CÆSAR

       What they say and what thou sayest I hold
    False.  Though thou hast wept as woman, howled as wolf,
    Above our dead, thou art hale and whole.  And now
    Behoves thee rise again as Christ our God,
    Vicarious Christ, and cast as flesh away
    This grief from off thy godhead.  I and thou,
    One, will set hand as never God hath set
    To the empire and the steerage of the world.
    Do thou forget but him who is dead, and was
    Nought, and bethink thee what a world to wield
    The eternal God hath given into thine hands
    Which daily mould him out of bread, and give
    His kneaded flesh to feed on.  Thou and I
    Will make this rent and ruinous Italy
    One.  Ours it shall be, body and soul, and great
    Above all power and glory given of God
    To them that died to set thee where thou art—
    Throned on the dust of Cæsar and of Christ,
    Imperial.  Earth shall quail again, and rise
    Again the higher because she trembled.  Rome
    So bade it be: it was, and shall be.

    ALEXANDER

                Son,
    Art thou my son?

    CÆSAR

          Whom should thy radiant Rose
    Have found so fit to ingraff with, and bring forth
    So strong a scion as I am?

    ALEXANDER

             By my faith—
    Wherein, I know not—by my soul, if that
    Be—I believe it.  God forgot his doom
    When he thou hast slain drew breath before thee

    CÆSAR

                God
    Must needs forget—if God remember.  Now
    This thing thou hast loved, and I that swept him hence
    Held never fit for hate of mine, is dead,
    Wilt thou be one with me—one God?  No less,
    Lord Christ of Rome, thou wilt be.

    ALEXANDER

             Ay?  The Dove?

    CÆSAR

    What dove, though lovelier than the swan that lured
    Leda to love of God on earth, might match
    Lucrezia?

    ALEXANDER

       None.  Thou art subtle of soul and strong.
    I would thou hadst spared him—couldst have spared him.

    CÆSAR

          Sire,
    I would so too.  Our sire, his sire and mine,
    I slew not him for lust of slaying, or hate,
    Or aught less like thy wiser spirit and mine.

    ALEXANDER

    Not for the dove's sake?

    CÆSAR

          Not for hate or love.
    Death was the lot God bade him draw, if God
    Be more than what we make him.

    ALEXANDER

                Bread and wine
    Could hardly turn so bitter.  Canst thou sleep?

    CÆSAR

    Dost thou not?  Flesh must sleep to live.  Am I
    No son of thine?

    ALEXANDER

             I would I saw thine end,
    And mine: and yet I would not.

    CÆSAR

                Sire, good night.
    [Exeunt