IV
The scene of the first act of Niccolini’s tragedy is near the Capitoline Hill, in Rome, where two rival leaders, Frangipani and Giordano Pierleone, are disputing in the midst of their adherents. The former is a supporter of the papal usurpations; the latter is a republican chief, who has been excommunicated for his politics, and is also under sentence of banishment; but who, like Arnaldo, remains in Rome in spite of Church and State. Giordano withdraws to the Campid�glio with his adherents, and there Arnaldo suddenly appears among them. When the people ask what cure there is for their troubles, Arnaldo answers, in denunciation of the papacy:
Liberty and God.
A voice from the orient,
A voice from the Occident,
A voice from thy deserts,
A voice of echoes from the open graves,
Accuses thee, thou shameless harlot! Drunk
Art thou with blood of saints, and thou hast lain
With all the kings of earth. Ah, you behold her!
She is clothed on with purple; gold and pearls
And gems are heaped upon her; and her vestments
Once white, the pleasure of her former spouse,
That now’s in heaven, she has dragged in dust.
Lo, is she full of names and blasphemies,
And on her brow is written Mystery!
Ah, nevermore you hear her voice console
The afflicted; all she threatens, and creates
With her perennial curse in trembling souls
Ineffable pangs; the unhappy — as we here
Are all of us — fly in their common sorrows
To embrace each other; she, the cruel one,
Sunders them in the name of Jesus; fathers
She kindles against sons, and wives she parts
From husbands, and she makes a war between
Harmonious brothers; of the Evangel she
Is cruel interpreter, and teaches hate
Out of the book of love. The years are come
Whereof the rapt Evangelist of Patmos
Did prophesy; and, to deceive the people,
Satan has broken the chains he bore of old;
And she, the cruel, on the infinite waters
Of tears that are poured out for her, sits throned.
The enemy of man two goblets places
Unto her shameless lips; and one is blood,
And gold is in the other; greedy and fierce
She drinks so from them both, the world knows not
If she of blood or gold have greater thirst....
Lord, those that fled before thy scourge of old
No longer stand to barter offerings
About thy temple’s borders, but within
Man’s self is sold, and thine own blood is trafficked,
Thou son of God!
The people ask Arnaldo what he counsels them to do, and he advises them to restore the senate and the tribunes, appealing to the glorious memories of the place where they stand, the Capitoline Hill:
Where the earth calls at every step, “Oh, pause,
Thou treadest on a hero!”
They desire to make him a tribune, but he refuses, promising, however, that he will not withhold his counsel. Whilst he speaks, some cardinals, with nobles of the papal party, appear, and announce the election of the new Pope, Adrian. “What is his name?” the people demand; and a cardinal answers, “Breakspear, a Briton.” Giordano exclaims:
Impious race! you’ve chosen Rome for shepherd
A cruel barbarian, and even his name
Tortures our ears.
Arnaldo. I never care to ask
Where popes are born; and from long suffering,
You, Romans, before heaven, should have learnt
That priests can have no country....
I know this man; his father was a thrall,
And he is fit to be a slave. He made
Friends with the Norman that enslaves his country;
A wandering beggar to Avignon’s cloisters
He came in boyhood and was known to do
All abject services; there those false monks
He with astute humility cajoled;
He learned their arts, and ‘mid intrigues and hates
He rose at last out of his native filth
A tyrant of the vile.
The cardinals, confounded by Arnaldo’s presence and invectives, withdraw, but leave one of their party to work on the fears of the Romans, and make them return to their allegiance by pictures of the desolating war which Barbarossa, now approaching Rome to support Adrian, has waged upon the rebellious Lombards at Rosate and elsewhere. Arnaldo replies: —
Romans,
I will tell all the things that he has hid;
I know not how to cheat you. Yes, Rosate
A ruin is, from which the smoke ascends.
The bishop, lord of Monferrato, guided
The German arms against Chieri and Asti,
Now turned to dust; that shepherd pitiless
Did thus avenge his own offenses on
His flying flocks; himself with torches armed
The German hand; houses and churches saw
Destroyed, and gave his blessing on the flames.
This is the pardon that you may expect
From mitered tyrants. A heap of ashes now
Crowneth the hill where once Tortona stood;
And drunken with her wine and with her blood,
Fallen there amidst their spoil upon the dead,
Slept the wild beasts of Germany: like ghosts
Dim wandering through the darkness of the night,
Those that were left by famine and the sword,
Hidden within the heart of thy dim caverns,
Desolate city! rose and turned their steps
Noiselessly toward compassionate Milan.
There they have borne their swords and hopes: I see
A thousand heroes born from the example
Tortona gave. O city, if I could,
O sacred city! upon the ruins fall
Reverently, and take them in my loving arms,
The relics of thy brave I’d gather up
In precious urns, and from the altars here
In days of battle offer to be kissed!
Oh, praise be to the Lord! Men die no more
For chains and errors; martyrs now at last
Hast thou, O holy Freedom; and fain were I
Ashes for thee! — But I see you grow pale,
Ye Romans! Down, go down; this holy height
Is not for cowards. In the valley there
Your tyrant waits you; go and fall before him
And cover his haughty foot with tears and kisses.
He’ll tread you in the dust, and then absolve you.
The People. The arms we have are strange and few,
Our walls Are fallen and ruinous.
Arnaldo. Their hearts are walls
Unto the brave....
And they shall rise again,
The walls that blood of freemen has baptized,
But among slaves their ruins are eternal.
People. You outrage us, sir!
Arnaldo. Wherefore do ye tremble
Before the trumpet sounds? O thou that wast
Once the world’s lord and first in Italy,
Wilt thou be now the last?
People. No more! Cease, or thou diest!
Arnaldo, having roused the pride of the Romans, now tells them that two thousand Swiss have followed him from his exile; and the act closes with some lyrical passages leading to the fraternization of the people with these.
The second act of this curious tragedy, where there may be said to be scarcely any personal interest, but where we are aware of such an impassioned treatment of public interests as perhaps never was before, opens with a scene between the Pope Adrian and the Cardinal Guido. The character of both is finely studied by the poet; and Guido, the type of ecclesiastical submission, has not
more faith in the sacredness and righteousness of Adrian, than Adrian, the type of ecclesiastical ambition, has in himself. The Pope tells Guido that he stands doubting between the cities of Lombardy leagued against Frederick, and Frederick, who is coming to Rome, not so much to befriend the papacy as to place himself in a better attitude to crush the Lombards. The German dreams of the restoration of Charlemagne’s empire; he believes the Church corrupt; and he and Arnaldo would be friends, if it were not for Arnaldo’s vain hope of re�stablishing the republican liberties of Rome. The Pope utters his ardent desire to bring Arnaldo back to his allegiance; and when Guido reminds him that Arnaldo has been condemned by a council of the Church, and that it is scarcely in his power to restore him, Adrian turns upon him:
What sayest thou?
I can do all. Dare the audacious members
Rebel against the head? Within these hands
Lie not the keys that once were given to Peter?
The heavens repeat as ‘t were the word of God,
My word that here has power to loose and bind.
Arnaldo did not dare so much. The kingdom
Of earth alone he did deny me. Thou
Art more outside the Church than he.
Guido (kneeling at Adrian’s feet). O God,
I erred; forgive! I rise not from thy feet
Till thou absolve me. My zeal blinded me.
I’m clay before thee; shape me as thou wilt,
A vessel apt to glory or to shame.
Guido then withdraws at the Pope’s bidding, in order to send a messenger to Arnaldo, and Adrian utters this fine soliloquy:
At every step by which I’ve hither climbed
I’ve found a sorrow; but upon the summit
All sorrows are; and thorns more thickly spring
Around my chair than ever round a throne.
What weary toil to keep up from the dust
This mantle that’s weighed down the strongest limbs!
These splendid gems that blaze in my tiara,
They are a fire that burns the aching brow,
I lift with many tears, O Lord, to thee!
Yet I must fear not; He that did know how
To bear the cross, so heavy with the sins
Of all the world, will succor the weak servant
That represents his power here on earth.
Of mine own isle that make the light o’ the sun
Obscure as one day was my lot, amidst
The furious tumults of this guilty Rome,
Here, under the superb effulgency
Of burning skies, I think of you and weep!
The Pope’s messenger finds Arnaldo in the castle of Giordano, where these two are talking of the present fortunes and future chances of Rome. The patrician forebodes evil from the approach of the emperor, but Arnaldo encourages him, and, when the Pope’s messenger appears, he is eager to go to Adrian, believing that good to their cause will come of it. Giordano in vain warns him against treachery, bidding him remember that Adrian will hold any falsehood sacred that is used with a heretic. It is observable throughout that Niccolini is always careful to make his rebellious priest a good Catholic; and now Arnaldo rebukes Giordano for some doubts of the spiritual authority of the Pope. When Giordano says:
These modern pharisees, upon the cross,
Where Christ hung dying once, have nailed mankind,
Arnaldo answers:
He will know how to save that rose and conquered;
And Giordano replies:
Yes, Christ arose; but Freedom cannot break
The stone that shuts her ancient sepulcher,
For on it stands the altar.
Adrian, when Arnaldo appears before him, bids him fall down and kiss his feet, and speak to him as to God; he will hear Arnaldo only as a penitent. Arnaldo answers:
The feet
Of his disciples did that meek One kiss
Whom here thou representest. But I hear
Now from thy lips the voice of fiercest pride.
Repent, O Peter, that deniest him,
And near the temple art, but far from God!
The name of the king
Is never heard in Rome. And if thou are
The vicar of Christ on earth, well should’st thou know
That of thorns only was the crown he wore.
Adrian. He gave to me the empire of the earth
When this great mantly I put on, and took
The Church’s high seat I was chosen to;
The word of God did erst create the world,
And now mine guides it. Would’st thou that the soul
Should serve the body? Thou dost dream of freedom,
And makest war on him who sole on earth
Can shield man from his tyrants. O Arnaldo,
Be Wise; believe me, all thy words are vain,
Vain sound that perish or disperse themselves
Amidst the wilderness of Rome. I only
Can speak the words that the whole world repeats.
Arnaldo. Thy words were never Freedom’s; placed between
The people and their tyrants, still the Church
With the weak cruel, with the mighty vile,
Has been, and crushed in pitiless embraces
That emperors and pontiffs have exchanged.
Man has been ever.
Why seek’st thou empire here, and great on earth
Art mean in heaven? Ah! vainly in thy prayer
Thou criest, “Let the heart be lifted up!”
‘T is ever bowed to earth.
Now, then, if thou wilt,
Put forth the power that thou dost vaunt; repress
The crimes of bishops, make the Church ashamed
To be a step-mother to the poor and lowly.
In all the Lombard cities every priest
Has grown a despot, in shrewd perfidy
Now siding with the Church, now with the Empire.
They have dainty food, magnificent apparel,
Lascivious joys, and on their altars cold
Gathers the dust, where lies the miter dropt,
Forgotten, from the haughty brow that wears
The helmet, and no longer bows itself
Before God’s face in th’ empty sanctuaries;
But upon the fields of slaughter, smoking still,
Bends o’er the fallen foe, and aims the blows
O’ th’ sacrilegious sword, with cruel triumph
Insulting o’er the prayers of dying men.
There the priest rides o’er breasts of fallen foes,
And stains with blood his courser’s iron heel.
When comes a brief, false peace, and wearily
Amidst the havoc doth the priest sit down,
His pleasures are a crime, and after rapine
Luxury follows. Like a thief he climbs
Into the fold, and that desired by day
He dares amid the dark, and violence
Is the priest’s marriage. Vainly did Rome hope
That they had thrown aside the burden vile
Of the desires that weigh down other men.
Theirs is the ungrateful lust of the wild beast,
That doth forget the mother nor knows the child.
... On the altar of Christ,
Who is the prince of pardon and of peace,
Vows of revenge are registered, and torches
That are thrown into hearts of leaguered cities
Are lit from tapers burning before God.
Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells Page 1393
