Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  THE DUCHESS [having subscribed it].

  And opportunely, sir —

  Since at a birthday’s close, like this of mine,

  Good wishes gentle deeds reciprocate.

  Most on a wedding-day, as mine is too,

  Should gifts be thought of: yours comes first by right.

  Ask of me!

  BERTHOLD.

  He shall have whate’er he asks,

  For your sake and his own.

  VALENCE [aside].

  If I should ask —

  The withered bunch of flowers she wears — perhaps,

  One last touch of her hand, I nevermore

  Shall see!

  [After a pause, presenting his paper to THE PRINCE.

  Cleves’ Prince, redress the wrongs of Cleves!

  BERTHOLD.

  I will, sir!

  THE DUCHESS [as VALENCE prepares to retire].

  — Nay, do out your duty, first!

  You bore this paper; I have registered

  My answer to it: read it and have done!

  [VALENCE reads it.

  I take him — give up Juliers and the world.

  This is my Birthday.

  MELCHIOR.

  Berthold, my one hero

  Of the world she gives up, one friend worth my books,

  Sole man I think it pays the pains to watch, —

  Speak, for I know you through your Popes and Kings!

  BERTHOLD [after a pause.]

  Lady, well rewarded!

  Sir, as well deserved!

  I could not imitate — I hardly envy —

  I do admire you. All is for the best.

  Too costly a flower were this, I see it now,

  To pluck and set upon my barren helm

  To wither any garish plume will do.

  I’ll not insult you and refuse your Duchy —

  You can so well afford to yield it me,

  And I were left, without it, sadly lorn.

  As it is — for me — if that will flatter you,

  A somewhat wearier life seems to remain

  Than I thought possible where . . . ’faith, their life

  Begins already! They ‘re too occupied

  To listen: and few words content me best.

  [Abruptly to the COURTIERS.]

  I am your Duke, though! Who obey me here?

  THE DUCHESS.

  Adolf and Sabyne follow us —

  GUIBERT [starting from the COURTIERS].

  — And I?

  Do I not follow them, if I may n’t you?

  Shall not I get some little duties up

  At Ravestein and emulate the rest?

  God save you, Gaucelme! ‘T is my Birthday, too!

  BERTHOLD.

  You happy handful that remain with me

  . . . That is, with Dietrich the black Barnabite

  I shall leave over you — will earn your wages

  Or Dietrich has forgot to ply his trade!

  Meantime, — go copy me the precedents

  Of every installation, proper styles

  And pedigrees of all your Juliers’ Dukes —

  While I prepare to plod on my old way,

  And somewhat wearily, I must confess!

  THE DUCHESS [with a light joyous laugh as she turns from them].

  Come, Valence, to our friends, God’s earth . . .

  VALENCE [as she falls into his arms].

  — And thee!

  BELLS AND POMEGRANATES NO. VIII: LURIA AND A SOUL’S TRAGEDY

  CONTENTS

  Luria

  Persons

  Act I

  Act II

  Act III

  Act IV

  Act V

  A Soul’s Tragedy

  Part I

  Part II

  Luria

  Dedication

  I DEDICATE

  THIS LAST ATTEMPT FOR THE PRESENT AT DRAMATIC

  POETRY

  TO A GREAT DRAMATIC POET;

  “WISHING WHAT I WRITE MAY BE READ BY HIS LIGHT:”

  -IF A PHRASE ORIGINALLY ADDRESSED, BY NOT THE

  LEAST WORTHY OF HIS CONTEMPORARIES,

  TO SHAKESPEARE,

  MAY BE APPLIED HERE, BY ONE WHOSE SOLE PRIVILEGE

  IS IN A GRATEFUL ADMIRATION,

  TO WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

  Persons

  LURIA, a Moor, Commander of the Florentine Forces.

  HUSAIN, a Moor, his friend.

  PUCCIO, the old Florentine Commander, now LURIA’S Chief Officer.

  BRACCIO, Commissary of the Republic of Florence.

  JACOPO (LAPO), his Secretary.

  TIBURZIO, Commander of the Pisans.

  DOMIZIA, a noble Florentine Lady.

  Act I

  TIME, 14 — .

  SCENE. — LURIA’S Camp between Florence and Pisa.

  ACT I

  MORNING

  BRACCIO, as dictating to his Secretary; PUCCIO standing by.

  Brac. [to PUC.] Then, you join battle in an hour?

  Puc. Not I;

  Luria, the Captain.

  Brac. [to the Sec.] “In an hour, the battle.”

  [To PUC.] Sir, let your eye run o’er this loose digest

  And see if very much of your report

  Have slipped away through my civilian phrase.

  Does this instruct the Signory aright

  How army stands with army?

  Puc. [taking the paper.] All seems here:

  — That Luria, seizing with our City’s force

  The several points of vantage, hill and plain,

  Shuts Pisa safe from help on every side,

  And baffling the Lucchese arrived too late,

  Must, in the battle he delivers now,

  Beat her best troops and first of chiefs.

  Brac. So sure?

  Tiburzio’s a consummate captain too!

  Puc. Luria holds Pisa’s fortune in his hand.

  Brac. [to the Sec.] “The Signory hold Pisa in their hand!”

  Your own proved soldiership’s our warrant, sir:

  So, while my secretary ends his task,

  Have out two horsemen, by the open roads,

  To post with it to Florence!

  Puc. [returning the paper.] All seems here;

  Unless. . . Ser Braccio, ‘tis my last report!

  Since Pisa’s outbreak, and my overthrow,

  And Luria’s hastening at the city’s call

  To save her, as he only could, no doubt;

  Till now that she is saved or sure to be, —

  Whatever you tell Florence, I tell you:

  Each day’s note you, her Commissary, make

  Of Luria’s movements, I myself supply.

  No youngster am I longer, to my cost;

  Therefore while Florence gloried in her choice

  And vaunted Luria, whom but Luria, still,

  As if zeal, courage, prudence, conduct, faith,

  Had never met in any man before,

  I saw no pressing need to swell the cry.

  But now, this last report and I have done —

  So, ere to-night comes with its roar of praise,

  ‘Twere not amiss if some one old i’ the trade

  Subscribed with, “True, for once rash counsel’s best;

  “This Moor of the bad faith and doubtful race,

  “This boy to whose untried sagacity,

  “Raw valour, Florence trusts without reserve

  “The charge to save her, justifies her choice;

  “In no point has this stranger failed his friends;

  “Now praise!” I say this, and it is not here.

  Brac. [to the Sec]. Write, “Puccio, superseded in the charge

  “By Luria, bears full witness to his worth,

  “And no reward our Signory can give

  “Their champion but he’ll back it cheerfully.”

  Aught more? Five minutes hence, both messengers!

  [PUCCIO goes.

  B
rac. [after a pause, and while he slowly tears the paper into shreds.]

  I think. . . pray God, I hold in fit contempt

  This warfare’s noble art and ordering,

  And, — once the brace of prizers fairly matched,

  Poleaxe with poleaxe, knife with knife as good, —

  Spit properly at what men term their skill. . .

  Yet here I think our fighter has the odds;

  With Pisa’s strength diminished thus and thus,

  Such points of vantage in our hands and such,

  With Lucca off the stage, too, — all’s assured:

  Luria must win this battle. Write the Court,

  That Luria’s trial end and sentence pass!

  Sec. Patron, —

  Brac. Aye, Lapo?

  Sec. If you trip, I fall;

  ‘Tis in self-interest I speak —

  Brac. Nay, nay,

  You overshoot the mark, my Lapo! Nay!

  When did I say pure love’s impossible?

  I make you daily write those red cheeks thin,

  Load your young brow with what concerns it least,

  And, when we visit Florence, let you pace

  The Piazza by my side as if we talked,

  Where all your old acquaintances may see:

  You’d die for me, I should not be surprised!

  Now then!

  Sec. Sir, look about and love yourself!

  Step after step the Signory and you

  Tread gay till this tremendous point’s to pass;

  Which, pass not, pass not, ere you ask yourself,

  Bears the brain steadily such draughts of fire,

  Or too delicious may not prove the pride

  Of this long secret Trial you dared plan,

  Dare execute, you solitary here,

  With the grey-headed toothless fools at home,

  Who think themselves your lords, they are such slaves?

  If they pronounce this sentence as you bid,

  Declare the treason, claim its penalty, —

  And sudden out of all the blaze of life,

  On the best minute of his brightest day,

  From that adoring army at his back,

  Thro’ Florence’ joyous crowds before his face,

  Into the dark you beckon Luria. . .

  Brac. Then —

  Why, Lapo, when the fighting-people vaunt,

  We of the other craft and mystery,

  May we not smile demure, the danger past?

  Sec. Sir, no, no, no, — the danger, and your spirit

  At watch and ward? Where’s danger on your part,

  With that thin flitting instantaneous steel,

  ‘Gainst the blind bull-front of a brute-force world?

  If Luria, that’s to perish sure as fate,

  Should have been really guiltless after all?

  Brac. Ah, you have thought that?

  Sec. Here I sit, your scribe,

  And in and out goes Luria, days and nights;

  This Puccio comes; the Moor his other friend,

  Husain; they talk — all that’s feigned easily;

  He speaks (I would not listen if I could),

  Heads, orders, counsels; — but he rests sometimes, —

  I see him stand and eat, sleep stretched an hour

  On the lynx-skins, yonder; hold his bared black arms

  Into the sun from the tent-opening; laugh

  When his horse drops the forage from his teeth

  And neighs to hear him hum his Moorish songs,

  That man believes in Florence, as the Saint

  Tied to the wheel believes in God!

  Brac. How strange —

  You too have thought that!

  Sec. Do but you think too,

  And all is saved! I only have to write,

  The man seemed false awhile, proves true at last;

  Bury it. . . so I write to the Signory. . .

  Bury this Trial in your breasts for ever,

  Blot it from things or done or dreamed about,

  So Luria shall receive his meed to-day

  With no suspicion what reverse was near, —

  As if no meteoric finger hushed

  The doom-word just on the destroyer’s lip.

  Motioned him off, and let life’s sun fall straight.

  Brac. [looks to the wall of the tent.] Did he draw that?

  Sec. With charcoal, when the watch

  Made the report at midnight; Lady Domizia

  Spoke of the unfinished Duomo, you remember;

  That is his fancy how a Moorish front

  Might join to, and complete, the body, — a sketch, —

  And again where the cloak hangs, yonder in the shadow.

  Brac. He loves that woman.

  Sec. She is sent the spy

  Of Florence, — spies on you as you on him:

  Florence, if only for Domizia s sake,

  Is surely safe. What shall I write?

  Brac. I see —

  A Moorish front, nor of such ill design!

  Lapo, there’s one thing plain and positive;

  Man seeks his own good at the whole world’s cost.

  What? If to lead our troops, stand forth our chiefs,

  And hold our fate, and see us at their beck,

  Yet render up the charge when peace returned,

  Have ever proved too much for Florentines,

  Even for the best and bravest of ourselves —

  If in the struggle when the soldier’s sword

  Should sink its point before the statist’s pen,

  And the calm head replace the violent hand,

  Virtue on virtue still have fallen away

  Before ambition with unvarying fate,

  Till Florence’ self at last in bitterness

  Be forced to own such falls the natural end,

  And, sparing further to expose her sons

  To a vain strife and profitless disgrace,

  Declare “The Foreigner, one not my child,

  “Shall henceforth lead my troops, reach height by height

  “The glory, then descend into the shame;

  “So shall rebellion be less guilt in him,

  “And punishment the easier task for me “

  — If on the best of us this brand she set,

  Can I suppose an utter alien here,

  This Luria, our inevitable foe,

  Confessed a mercenary and a Moor,

  Born free from any ties that bind the rest

  Of common faith in Heaven or hope on Earth,

  No Past with us, no Future, — such a Spirit

  Shall hold the path from which our staunchest broke,

  Stand firm where every famed precursor fell?

  My Lapo, I will frankly say, these proofs

  So duly noted of the man’s intent,

  Are for the doting fools at home, not me;

  The charges here, they may be true or false,

  — What is set down? Errors and oversights,

  This dallying interchange of courtesies

  With Pisa’s General, — all that, hour by hour,

  Puccio’s pale discontent has furnished us,

  Of petulant speeches, inconsiderate acts,

  Now overhazard, overcaution now;

  Even that he loves this Lady who believes

  She outwits Florence, and whom Florence posted

  By my procurement here, to spy on me,

  Lest I one minute lose her from my sight —

  She who remembering her whole House’s fall,

  That nest of traitors strangled in the birth,

  Now labours to make Luria. . . . poor device

  As plain. . . . the instrument of her revenge!

  — That she is ever at his ear to prompt

  Inordinate conceptions of his worth,

  Exorbitant belief in its reward,

  And after, when sure disappointment follows,

  Proportionable rage at such a wrong —

&n
bsp; Why, all these reasons, while I urge them most,

  Weigh with me less than least; as nothing weigh!

  Upon that broad Man’s heart of his, I go!

  On what I know must be, yet while I live

  Will never be, because I live and know!

  Brute-force shall not rule Florence! Intellect

  May rule her, bad or good as chance supplies, —

  But Intellect it shall be, pure if bad,

  And Intellect’s tradition so kept up

  Till the good comes — ’twas Intellect that ruled,

  Not Brute-force bringing from the battle-field

  The attributes of wisdom, foresight’s graces

  We lent it there to lure its grossness on;

  All which it took for earnest and kept safe

  To show against us in our market-place,

  Just as the plumes and tags and swordsman’s gear

  (Fetched from the camp where at their foolish best

  When all was done the frightened nobody)

  Perk in our faces in the street, forsooth,

  With our own warrant and allowance. No!

  The whole procedure’s overcharged, — its end

  In too strict keeping with the bad first step.

  To conquer Pisa was sheer inspiration?

  Well then, to perish for a single fault,

  Let that be simple justice! — There, my Lapo!

  A Moorish front ill suits our Duomo’s body —

  Blot it out — and bid Luria’s sentence come!

  [LURIA who, with DOMIZIA, has entered unobserved

  at the close of the last phrase, now advancing.

  And Luria, Luria, what of Luria now?

  Brac. Ah, you so close, Sir? Lady Domizia too?

  I said it needs must be a busy moment

  For one like you — that you were now i’ the thick

  Of your duties, doubtless, while we idlers sate. . . .

  Lur. No — in that paper, — it was in that paper

  What you were saying!

  Brac. Oh — my day’s dispatch!

  I censure you to Florence: will you see?

  Lur. See your dispatch, your last, for the first time?

  Well, if I should, now? For in truth, Domizia,

  He would be forced to set about another,

  In his sly cool way, the true Florentine,

  To mention that important circumstance;

  So while he wrote I should gain time, such time!

  Do not send this!

  Brac. And wherefore?

  Lur. These Lucchese

  Are not arrived — they never will arrrive!

  And I must fight to-day, arrived or not;

  And I shall beat Tiburzio, that is sure:

  And then will be arriving my Lucchese,

  But slowly, oh so slowly, just in time

  To look upon my battle from the hills,

  Like a late moon, of use to nobody!