Puslapio vaizdai
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IPPOLITO DI ESTE.*

Ippolito. Now all the people follow the procession
Here may I walk alone, and let my spirits
Enjoy the coolness of these quiet aisles.

Surely no air is stirring; every step

Tires me; the columns shake, the ceiling fleets,
The floor beneath me slopes, the altar rises.

Stay! here she stept: what grace! what harmony!
It seem'd that every accent, every note

Of all the choral music, breath'd from her:
From her celestial airiness of form

:

I could have fancied purer light descended.
Between the pillars, close and wearying,
I watcht her as she went: I had rusht on;
It was too late; yet, when I stopt, I thought
I stopt full soon I cried, Is she not there?
She had been: I had seen her shadow burst
The sunbeam as she parted: a strange sound,
A sound that stupified and not aroused me,
Fill'd all my senses: such was never felt
Save when the sword-girt Angel struck the gate,
And Paradise wail'd loud and closed for ever.
She should return; the hour is past away.
How can I bear to see her (yet I will)
Springing, she fondly thinks, to meet the man
I most abhor, my father's base-born son,
Ferrante!

ΙΟ

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* Ferrante and Giulio were brothers, by the father's side, to the Duke Alfonso and the Cardinal Ippolito di Este. The cardinal deprived Ferrante of his eyes for loving the same object as his Eminence, and because she had praised the beauty of them.

Rosalba (entering). What! I called him? in my haste To languish at his beauty, to weigh down His eyelids with my lips for gazing on me: Surely I spoke the name, and knew it not Until it bounded back and smote me so! Ippolito. Curses upon them both!

Welcome, sweet lady!

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[Advancing toward her.

Rosalba. Lord Cardinal! you here? and unattended?
Ippolito. We wait the happy lover, do we not?
Rosalba. Ferrante then betrayed the secret to you!
And are you come to honour with your presence
Ippolito. Has the Duke sign'd the contract?
Rosalba.

Ferrante writes Ferrante plain enough;
And I do think, altho' I once or twice
Have written it instead of mine, at last

I am grown steadier, and could write Rosalba.

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For what bride?

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Ippolito. Sport not with one your charms have cast too low. Sport not with one your hand would raise too

Rosalba.

high. Ippolito. Again that taunt! the time may come, Rosalba, When I could sanctify the blissful state

I have aspired to.

Rosalba.

Am not I mere ice?

Show not I girlish forwardness, the fears
Of infancy, the scruples of old age?

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hate them? you

Have not you said so ? and said more
How could you bear me, or what wish from me?
Ippolito. That which another will not long retain.
Rosalba. You know him little and me less.
Ippolito.

Inconstancy in him.

I know

Rosalba.

And what in me?

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Ippolito. No?

Rosalba. Call it thus, and cast it on the rest.

Ippolito. Some are there whose close vision sees but one In the whole world, and would not see another

For the whole world, were that one out of it.

Rosalba. Are there some such? O may they be my friends!

O how, before I know them, I do love them!
Ippolito. After no strife, no censure, no complaint,

Have not your tears been seen, when you have left him, 70
Thro' tediousness, distaste, dislike, and grief
(Ingenuous minds must feel it, and may own it)
That love, so rashly promist, would retire,
Hating exaction, circumvention, bonds?

Rosalba. Such grief is yet unknown to me.
All tears are not for sorrow: many swell
In the warm depths of gratitude and bliss ;
But precious over all are those that hang
And tremble at the tale of generous deeds.
These he relates when he might talk, as you do,
Of passion: but he sees my heart, he finds
What fragrance most refreshes it.

How high,

I know

O Heaven! must that man be, who loves, and who
Would still raise others higher than himself

To interest his beloved!

All my soul

Is but one drop from his, and into his
Falls, as earth's dew falls into earth again.

Ippolito. Yet would it not be wise to trust a friend
Able to counsel in extremes and straits?

Rosalba. Is it not wise in darkness and in storm

To trust the wave that lashes us, and pray
Its guidance on the rocks whereto it tends?
I have my guide, Lord Cardinal! he alone

Is ship and pilot to me, sea and star :

Counsel from others, knowing him, would be
Like worship of false gods; in me no less

Than profanation and apostacy.

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90

Ippolito. We may retire; he comes not here to-day. 100 Rosalba. Then will I not retire, but lay my head

Upon the feet of any pitying saint

Until he comes, altho' it be to-morrow.

Ippolito. To-morrow he may fail: the sovran will By rescript has detained and must delay him.

Rosalba. Lead, lead me to Ferrante.

Ippolito.

Were I worthy.

Rosalba. Proud cruel man! that bitter sneer bodes ill. May not I see him?

Ippolito.

He may not see you.

Rosalba. O let him! well my memory can supply

His beauteous image; I can live on love

Saturate, like bees with honey, long drear days;

He must see me, or cannot rest; I can.

ΠΙΟ

SECOND PART.

IPPOLITO, FERRANTE, and GIULIO, in prison.

Ippolito. Reasons of state, I fear, have dictated This something like severity; God grant

Here be no heresy: do both avow it,

Staring in silence at discovery?

Giulio. No order forced me hither; I am come

To share my brother's fate, whate'er it be,

And mitigate his sufferings.

Ippolito.

May they cease!

Giulio. Those words would have dissolved them into air, Spoken but twenty furlongs from these bars.

Ippolito. I would do much to serve you; but my faith
And my allegiance have two other lords,
The duke my brother, and the pope my
Ferrante then says nothing?

Ferrante.

Thy hatred and its cause.
Ippolito.

My father's son, they say?

Ferrante.

God.

He well knows

Why should I hate

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They say! His blood
blood was

Runs in these veins, for pure,

pure

ΙΟ

hers

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Who loved the youthful lover, and who died
When falser vows estranged the matchless prince.
Ippolito. He saw his error.
Ferrante.

All men do when age.

Bends down their heads, or gold shines in their way.
Ippolito. Altho' I would have helpt you in distress,
And just removed you from the court awhile,

You call'd me tyrant.

Ferrante.

Calléd thee tyrant? I?

By Heaven! in tyrant there is something great
That never was in thee. I would be killed

Rather by any monster of the wild

Than choakt by weeds and quicksands, rather crusht
By maddest rage than clay-cold apathy.

Those who act well the tyrant, neither seek
Nor shun the name; and yet I wonder not
That thou repeatest it, and wishest me;
It sounds like power, like policy, like courage,
And none who calls thee tyrant can despise thee.
Go, issue orders for imprisonment,

Warrants for death: the gibbet and the wheel,
Lo! the grand boundaries of thy dominion!
O what a mighty office for a minister
(And such Alfonso's brother calls himself)
To be the scribe of hawkers! Man of

genius

The lanes and allies echo with thy works.

!

Giulio. Ah! do not urge him; he may ruin you; He may pursue you to the grave.

Ferrante.

He dares not :

Look at his collar! see the saint he wears!

The amber saint may ask too much for that.

Ippolito. Atheist! thy scoffs encourage every crime, And strip thee, like a pestilence, of friends:

Theirs is the guilt to march against the law,

They mount the scaffold, and the blow is thine.

Ferrante. How venom burnishes his adder's crest,
How eloquent on scaffolds and on laws!
If such a noisome weed as falsehood is
Give frothy vigour to a worm like thee,
Crawl, eat, drink, sleep upon it, and farewell.

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