Charles Di Tocca: A Tragedy

Cale Young Rice

Charles Di Tocca: A Tragedy

To My Wife

CHARLES DI TOCCA

A Tragedy

Nardo, a boy, and Diogenes, a philosopherA Captain of the Guard. Soldiers, Guests,Attendants, etcTime: Fifteenth Century

ACT ONE

Scene. —The Island Leucadia. A ruined temple of Apollo near the town of Pharo. Broken columns and stones are strewn, or stand desolately about. It is night – the moon rising. Antonio, who has been waiting impatiently, seats himself on a stone. By a road near the ruins Fulvia enters, cloaked.

Antonio (turning): Helen – !Fulvia: A comely name, my lord.Antonio: Ah, you?My father's unforgetting Fulvia?Fulvia: At least not Helena, whoe'er she be.Antonio: And did I call you so?Fulvia: Unless it isThese stones have tongue and passion.Antonio: Then the nightRecalling dreams of dim antiquity'sHeroic bloom worked on me. – But whence areYour steps, so late, alone?Fulvia: From the Cardinal,Who has but come.Antonio: What comfort there?Fulvia: With doomThe moody bolt of Rome broods over us.Antonio: My father will not bind his heresy?Fulvia: You with him walked to-day. What said he?Antonio: I?With him to-day? Ah, true. What may be done?Fulvia: He has been strange of late and silent, laughs,Seeing the Cross, but softly and almostAs it were some sweet thing he loved.Antonio (absently): As if'Twere some sweet thing – he laughs – is strange – you say?Fulvia: Stranger than is Antonio his son,Who but for some expectancy is vacant.

(She makes to go.)

Antonio: Stay, Fulvia, though I am not in poise.Last night I dreamed of you: in vain you hoveredTo reach me from the coil of swift Charybdis.

(A low cry, Antonio starts.)

Fulvia: A woman's voice!(Looking down the road.)And hasting here!Antonio: Alone?Fulvia: No, with another!Antonio: Go, then, Fulvia.'Tis one would speak with me.Fulvia: Ah? (She goes.) Enter Helena frightedly with PaulaHelena: Antonio!Antonio: My Helena, what is it? You are wanAnd tremble as a blossom quick with fearOf shattering. What is it? Speak.Helena: Not true!O, 'tis not true!Antonio: What have you chanced upon?Helena: Say no to me, say no, and no again!Antonio: Say no, and no?Helena: Yes; I am reeling, wrung,With one glance o'er the precipice of ill!Say his incanted prophecies spring fromNo power that's more than frenzied fantasy!Antonio: Who prophesies? Who now upon this isleMore than visible and present dayCan gather to his eye? Tell me.Helena: The monk —Ah, chide me not! – mad Agabus, who canUnsphere dark spirits from their evil airsAnd show all things of love or death, seized meAs hither I stole to thee. With wild looksAnd wilder lips he vented on my earBoding more wild than both. "Sappho!" he cried,"Sappho! Sappho!" and probed my eyes as ifDestiny moved dark-visaged in their deeps.Then tore his rags and moaned, "So young, to cease!"Gazed then out into awful vacancy;And whispered hotly, following his gaze,"The Shadow! Shadow!"Antonio: This is but a whim,A sudden gloomy surge of superstition.Put it from you, my Helena.Helena: But heHas often cleft the future with his ken,Seen through it to some lurking miseryAnd mar of love: or the dim knell of deathHeard and revealed.Antonio: A witless monk who thinksGod lives but to fulfil his prophecies!Helena: You know him not. 'Tis told in youth he lovedOne treacherous, and in avenge made fierceTreaty with Hell that lends him sight of allIlls that arise from it to mated hearts!Yet look not so, my lord! I'll trust thine eyesThat tell me love is master of all times,And thou of all love master!Antonio: And of thee?Then will the winds return unto the nightAnd flute us lover songs of happiness!Helena: Nor dare upon a duller note while hereWe tryst beneath the moon?Antonio: My perfect Greek!Athene looks again out of thy lids,And Venus trembles in thy every limb!Helena: Not Venus, ah, not Venus!Antonio: Now; again?Helena: 'Twas on this temple's ancient gate she foundWounded Adonis dead, and to forget,Like Sappho leaped, 'tis said, from yonder cliffDown to the waves' oblivion below.Antonio: And will you read such terror in a tale?Helena: Forgive me, then.Antonio: Surely you are unstrung,And yet there is –       (Turns away from her.)Helena: Is what? Antonio?Antonio: Nothing: I who must ebb with you and flowA little was moved.Helena: Not you, not you! I'll changeMy tears to laughter, if but fantasyMay so unmettle you! Not moved, indeed!Not moved, Antonio?Antonio: Well, let us off,My Helena, with these numb awes that windAbout our joy.Helena: Thy kiss then, for it canDrive all gloom out of the world!Antonio: And thine, my own,On Fate's hard brow would shame it of all frown!Helena: Yet is thine mightier, for no frown can beWhen no more gloom's in the world!Antonio: But 'tis thy lipsThat lend it might. If I pressed other —Helena: Other!You should not know that any other lipsCould e'er be pressed; I'll have no kiss but hisWho is all blind to every mouth but mine!

(Breaks from him.)

Antonio: Oh? – Well.Helena: "Oh – well?" – Then it is well I go!Antonio: Perhaps.Helena: "Perhaps!"     (Makes to go.)Antonio: Good-night.Helena (returning): Antonio – ?Antonio: Ah! still – ?Helena: There's gloom in the world again.Antonio (kissing her): 'Tis gone?Helena: Not all, I think.Antonio: Two for so small a gloom?

(Kisses her again.)

Helena: So small!Antonio: And still you sigh?Helena: The vainest gloomsTo-night seem ominous – as cloud-flakes flungUpward before the heaving of the west.(In fright) Oh!Antonio: Helena!Helena: See, see! 'tis Agabus! Enter Agabus unkempt and distractedAgabus: O – lovers! lovers! Lord have none of them!Antonio: Good monk —Agabus: O – yes, yes, yes. You'd give me goldTo pray for your two souls. (Crossing himself.) Not I! Not I!Know you not love is brewed of lust and fire?It gnaws and burns, until the Shadow – Sir,

(Searching about the air.)

Have you not seen a Shadow pass?Antonio: A Shadow?Agabus: Silent and cold. A-times they call him Death:I'd have him for my brain – it shakes with fever.

(Goes searching anxiously.

Helena: Antonio —Antonio: You're calm?Helena: Yes, very calm —Of impotence – as one who in a tombAwakes and waits?Antonio: He is but mad.Helena: But mad.Antonio: Yet fear you? still?

(A shout is heard.)

Helena: Who is it? soldiers comeFrom Arta?Antonio: Yes.Helena: And by this road! – They mustNot see us!Antonio: No. But quick, within this breach!

(They conceal themselves in the breach. The soldiers pass across the stage. The last, as all shout "di Tocca!" strikes a column near him. It falls, and Helena starts forward shuddering.)

Helena: Fallen! Ah, fallen! See, Antonio!Antonio: What now!Helena (swaying): It is as if the earth were windUnder my feet!Antonio: Are all things thus becomeOmen and dread to you?Helena: O, but it isThe pillar grieving Venus leant uponEre to forget she leapt, and wrote,When falls this pillar tall and proudLet surest lovers weave their shroud.Antonio: Mere myth!Helena: The shroud! It coldly winds about us – coldly!Antonio: Should a vain hap so desperately move you?Helena: The breath and secret soul of all this nightAre burdened with foreboding! And it seems —Antonio: You must not, Helena!Helena: My love, my lord —Touch me lest I forget my natural fleshIn this unnatural awe! (He takes her to him.)Ah how thy armsWarm the cold moan and misery of fearOut of my veins!Antonio: You rave, but in me stirAgain the attraction of these dim portents.Nay, quiver not! 'tis but a passing mist,And this that runs in us is worthless dread!Helena: But ah, the shroud! the shroud!Antonio: We'll weave no shroud,But wedding robes and wreaths and pageantry!And you shall be my Sappho – but through joysSuch as shall legend ecstasy aboutOur knitted names when distant lovers dream.Helena: I'll fear no more, then —Antonio: Yet?Helena: My lord, let usUnloose this strangling secrecy and beOpen in love. My brother, Hæmon, letOur hearts betrothed exchange and hope be toldHim and thy father!Antonio: This cannot be – nowHelena: It cannot be, and you a god? I'll bowBefore your eyes no more! – say that it can!Antonio: Not yet – not now. Hæmon's suspicious, quick,And melancholy: must be won with service.And you are Greek, a name till yesterdayI never knew pass in the portal toMy father's ear, but it came out his mouthHeadlong and dark with curses.Helena: Yet of lateHe oft has smiled upon me as he passed.Antonio: On you – my father? O, he only dreamt,And saw you not.Helena: Then have you also dreamt!He looked as you, when, moonlight in my hair,You call me —Antonio: Stay: I'll call you so no more.Helena: You'll call me so no more?Antonio: No more.Helena: Why doYou say so – is it kind?Antonio: Why? – why? BecauseWords were they miracles of beauty couldAs little reveal you as a taper's rayThe lone profundity and space of night!Helena: And yet —Antonio: And yet?Helena: I'll hold you not too falseIf sometimes they trip out upon your lips.Antonio: Or to my father's eye?Helena: If he but lookUpon me for thy sake.Antonio: He smiled, you say?Helena: Gently, as one might in forgetting pain.Antonio: Perhaps: for some unwonted softness seemsNear him. But yesterday he called for song,Dancing and wine.Helena: Then tell him! These are yearsSo dyed in crime that secrecy must seemYoke-mate of guilt.Antonio: Fear has bewitched you – shame!Helena: Antonio, love's wave has cast us highI would do all lest now it turn to fateUnder our feet and draw us out —Antonio: 'Twill not! Enter PaulaPaula: My lady, some one comes.Helena: And is the worldNot space enough but he must needs come here!If it were – ?Antonio: Hæmon? – 'Twere perhaps not ill.Helena: I know not! Broodings smoulder from his moodsFeverous bitter.Antonio: Kindness then shall quench them.But now, away. Forget this dread and be youBy day my lark, by night my nightingale,Not a sad bird of boding!Helena: With the dayAll will be well.Antonio: Remember then you areOnly a little slept from your life's shoreOut on the infinite of love, whose airIs awe and mystery.Helena: I go, my lord.Think of me oft!Antonio (taking her in his arms): My Helena!

(She goes with Paula. He steps aside and watches the approaching forms.)

'Tis Hæmon!My father! Enter Charles friendly, with HæmonCharles: So, no farther? you'll stop here?Hæmon: Sir, if you grant it. I —Charles (twittingly): Some rendezvous?Who is she? Ah, young blood and Spring and night!Hæmon: No rendezvous, my lord.Charles: Some lay then youWould muse on?Hæmon: Yes, a lay.Charles: And one of love?The word, you see, founts easy to my lips.(With confidential archness.) 'Tis recent in my thought – as you will learn.Hæmon: How, sir, and when?Charles: O, when? Be not surprised! —Well, to the lay!(He goes.Hæmon: Cruel! His soldiers wasteThe bread of honesty, the hope of age!Are drunken, bloody, indolent, and lustTo tear all innocence away and robeOur loveliest in shame! – Yet me, a Greek,He suddenly befriends!Antonio (coming forward): Hæmon —Hæmon: Ah, you?Antonio: There's room between your tone and courtesy.Hæmon: And shall be while I'm readier to bendOver a beggar's pain than prince's fingers.Antonio: And yet you know me better —Hæmon: Than to believeYou're not Antonio, son of Charles di Tocca?Antonio: I'd be your friend.Hæmon: So would he: and he smiles.Antonio: There are deep reasons for it.Hæmon: With him too!Against a miracle, you are his heir!Antonio: I think it would be well for you to listen.My confidence once curbed —Hæmon: May bite and paw?Let it! for fools are threats, and cowards. WereYou Tamerlane and mine the skull should capA bloody pyramid of enemies,I'd – !Antonio: Hear me. Will you be so blind?Hæmon: To yourFair graces? No, my lord – not so. Your swordAnd doublet are sublimely worn! sublimely!Your curls would tempt an empress' fingers, and —Antonio: Why is my anger silent?Hæmon: Let it speakAnd not this subtle pride! You would be friend,A friend to me – a friend! – Did not your fatherInto a sick and sunless keep cast mineBecause he was a Greek and still a Greek,And would not be a slave? His cunning hasNot whispered death about him as a pest?He – he, my friend? and you? – And I on himShould lean, and flatter – ?Antonio: Cease: though he has stainsThe times are tyrannous and men like beastsFind mercy preservation's enemy.You're heated with suspicion and old wrong,But take my hand as pledge —Hæmon (refusing it): That you'll be false? Enter BardasBardas: I've sought you, Hæmon. Antonio? We areWell met then: to your doors my want was bentWith a request.Antonio: Which gladly I shall hearAnd if I can will grant.Bardas: My haste is blunt —As is my tongue.Hæmon: Then yield it us at once,Our mood is so.Bardas: Hæmon, I love your sister.Not love: I am idolatrous beforeHer foot's least print, and cannot breathe or prayBut where she's sometime been and left a heaven!Hæmon: Therefore you'll cry it maudlin at the streets?Bardas: Necessity's not over delicate.Antonio, sue for me. You have been aptIn all love's skill they say. My oath on itYour words once sown upon her listeningWould not lie fruitless did they bid her yieldMore than her most.Hæmon: Bardas! Do you – Does suchUnseemliness run in your thought?Bardas: Peace, Hæmon.Antonio, speak.Antonio: You're strange in this request.Helena, whom I've seen, would little thankThe eyes that told her own where they should love.Bardas: I saved your life, my lord.Antonio: And I've besoughtOccasion oft for loaning of some chanceWorthily to repay you. If 'tis this,I am distrest. I cannot plead your suit.Bardas: You cannot or you will not?Antonio: I have said.Ask me for service on your foes, for gold,Faith or devotion, friendship you're aloof to,For all that will and honor well may renderWith nicety, and I'll be wings and heart,More – drudge to your desire.Hæmon: Nobly, my lord!Bardas, you must atone —Bardas: Peace, Hæmon.Hæmon: PeaceIs goad and gall! Why do you burn my cheekWith this indignity?Bardas: Do you ask why? (to Antonio.)A little since one of your father's guardGave his command in seal to HelenaUpon the streets, to instantly repairUnto his halls – which she must henceforth honor.You knew it not?Antonio: My father?Bardas: O, well feigned.Be sure none will suspect he is too oldFor knightly feat like this – and that he hasA son!Antonio: To Helena! my father! sealed!Hæmon: Bardas, you bring the truth? – And so, my lord,You stab me through another – you, my friend?Antonio (to Bardas): Do you mean that – ?Bardas: Until this hour I heldThe race of Charles di Tocca bold, or otherBut empty of all lies in deed or speech,It grows – a little low?Antonio: Why you are mad!Are mad! I'm naked of this thing, and hideNo guilt behind the wonder of my face.For Paradises brimming with all BeautyI would not lay one fancy's weight of shameOn her you name!Bardas: A pretty protest – butA breath too heavenly.Antonio: Leave sneering there!You have repaid yourself – cast on me wordsIntolerable more than loss of life.You both shall learn this night's entangling.But know, between her, Helena, and shameI burn with flaming heart and fearless hand!(Goes angrily.Hæmon: He can be false and wear this mien of truth?Bardas: I'll not believe!Hæmon: But, what: my sister seized?Bardas: Ah, what! – "He burns with flaming heart!" – have weNo flesh to understand this passion then?Bound to the wings of wide ambition heWill choose undowered worth? – To the ordealOf mere suspicion's flaming I'd not trustThe fairness of his name; but doubts in meAre sunk with proofs.Hæmon: No, no!Bardas: Unyielding.Hæmon: Proof?He could not. No! he dare not!Bardas: Yet the rogueCecco, the duke's half-seneschal, half-spy,I passed upon the streets o'ermuch in wine,Leaning upon a tipsier jade and spoutingWith drunken mockery,

"'Sweet Helena! Fair Helena!' Pluck me, wench, but the lord Antonio knows sound nuts! And sly! Why hear you now! he gets the duke to seize on the maid! The fox! The rat! Have I not heard him in his chamber these thirty nights puff her name out his window with as many honeyed drawls of passion as – as – as – June has buds? 'Sweet Helena!' – la! 'Fair Helena!' – O! 'Dear Helena! my rose! my queen! my sun and moon and stars! Thy kiss is still at my lips, thy breast beats still on mine! my Helena!' – Um! Oh, 'tmust be a rare damsel. I'll make a sluice between her purse and mine, wench; do you hear?"

Hæmon: Well – well?Bardas: No more. When I had struck him down,He swore it was unswerving all and truth.Hasting to warn I found Helena ta'enAnd sought you here.Hæmon (grasping his brows): Ah!Bardas: Helena who isAll purity!Hæmon: Ah sister, child! – Have IWith strength been father and with tendernessA mother been to her unfolding yearsBut to see now unchastest crueltyPluck her white bloom to ease his idle senseOne fragrant hour? – If it be so, no flowersShould blossom; only weeds whose witheringCan hurt no heart!Bardas: These tears should seal fierce oathsAgainst him!Hæmon: And they shall! until God wrecksHim in the tempest raised of his outrage!Bardas: Then may I be the rock on which he breaks!But hear; who comes? (Revellers are heard approaching.)We must aside untilThis mirth is past. (They conceal themselves.)Enter revellers dressed as bacchanals and bacchantes, dancing and singingBacchus, hey! was a god, hei-yo!The vine! a fig for the rest!With locks green-crowned and lips red-warm —The vine! the vine's the best!He loved maids, O-o-ay! hei-yo!The vine! a maiden's breast!He pressed the grape, and kissed the maid! —The cuckoo builds no nest!

(All go dancing, except Lydia and Phaon, who clasps and kisses her passionately)

Lydia (breaking from him): Do you think kisses are so cheap? You must know mine fill my purse! A pretty gallant from Naples, with laces and silks and jewels gave me this ring last year for but one. And another lover from Venice gave me this (a bracelet) – but he looked so sad when he gave it. Ah, his eyes! I'd not have cared if he had given me naught.

Phaon: Here, here, then! (Offers jewel.)

Lydia (putting it aside): They say the ladies in Venice ride with their lovers through the streets all night in boats: and the very moon shines more passionately there. Is it true?

Phaon: Yes, yes. But kiss me, Lydia! Take this jewel – my last. Be mine to-night, no other's! We'll prate of Venice another time.

Lydia: Another time we'll prate of kisses. I'll not have the jewel.

Phaon: Not have it! Now you're turning nun! a soft and virgin, silly nun! With a gray gown to hide these shoulders that – shall I whisper it?

Lydia: Devil! they're not! A nice lover called them round and fair last night. And I've been sick! And – I – cruel! cruel! cruel! (Revellers are heard returning.) There, they're coming.

Phaon: Never mind, my girl. But you mustn't scorn a man's blood when it's afire.

Re-enter Revellers singingBacchus, hey! was a god, hei-yo! etc.(After which all go, except Zoe and Basil.

Zoe: O! O! O! but 'tis brave! Wine, Basil! Wine, my knight, my Bacchus! Ho! ho! my god! you wheeze like a cross-bow. Is it years, my wooer, years? – Ah! (She sighs.)

Basil: Sighs – sighs! Now look for showers.

Zoe: Basil – you were my first lover – except the duke Charles. Ah, did you see how that Helena looked when they gave her the duke's command? I was like that once. (Hæmon starts forward.)

Basil: Fiends, nymphs and saints! it's come! tears in your eyes! Zoe, stop it. Would you have mine leak and drive me to a monastery for shelter!

Zoe (sings sadly and absently):She lay by the river, dead,A broken reed in her handA nymph whom an idle god had wedAnd led from her maidenland.

Basil: O, had I been born a heathen!

Zoe: He told me, Basil, I should live, a great lady, at his castle. And they should kiss my hand and courtesy to me. He meant but jest – I feared. – I feared! But – I loved him!

Basil: Now, my damsel – !

Zoe (sings):The god was the great god Jove,Two notes would the bent reed blow,The one was sorrow, the other loveEnwove with a woman's woe.

Basil: Songs and snakes! Give me instead a Dominican's funeral! I'd as lief crawl bare-kneed to Rome and mouth the Pope's heel. O blessed Turks with their remorseless harems! – Zoe!

Zoe (sings):She lay by the river dead;And he at feasting forgot.The gods, shall they be disquietedBy dread of a mortal's lot?

(She wipes her eyes, trembles, looks at him and laughs hysterically.)

Bacchus! my Bacchus! with wet eyes! Up, up, lad! there's many a cup for us yet!

(They go, she leading and singing.

He loved maids, O-o-ay! hei-yo!The vine! a maiden's breast! etc.

(Hæmon and Bardas look at each other, then start after them terribly moved.)

Curtain

ACT TWO

Scene.—An audience hall in the castle of Charles di Tocca; the next afternoon. The dark stained walls have been festooned with vines and flowers. On the left is the ducal throne. On the right sunlight through high-set windows. In the rear heavily draped doors. Enter Charles, who looks around and smiles with subtle content, then summons a servant.

Enter servantCharles: The princess Fulvia.Servant: She comes, sir, now.(Goes. Enter FulviaFulvia: My lord, flowers and vines upon these wallsThat seem always in dismal memoryAnd mist of grief? What means it?Charles: That sprung up,A greedy multitude upon the fields,Citron and olive were left hungry, soI quelled them!Fulvia: Magic ever dwells in flowers

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