These foul insinuations? Pedro.

Under my window?

What mean

What mean they

Shall find my choice made firmly.

Blanca.
Now delay
Were madness, pardon perjury: such threats
Are traitorous and parricidal too.

[She calls from the window.

Blanca.

True service.

Pedro.

Let them enter then.

Blanca.

This room?

Pedro.

Not when Hell

Hell too we may close And its enormous portals, with less effort Than infants push aside ungrateful food. We have but to maintain our sense of right, Which of all senses is the pleasantest, And which must bear most violence ere expell'd. Blanca. I understand not a fantastic speech Appliant to no person, to no purport. I will speak plainer; and I speak to both; Obey!

It seems not decent that men's hands
Should touch with little gentleness, should lead
Compulsively, young women who have stood
Behind and near the daughter of Castille.
Long-suffering is my merit, if the grace

Of God vouchsafes me one: but oaths of fealty
On all are binding, and on queens the most.
My conscience hath upbraided me severely
For not disclosing to our king the part
Whereto (in tears I own it) I was privy,
Against his crown and dignity.

Come now!

Hear reason, dona Iñes! I no more
Urge any choice which may displease you both.
Pedro. Displease us? urge a choice?
Blanca.

Scandal at least.

your

[TO PEDRO. Stop me? hold me? grasp my wrist? Audacious! and let that foul fiend escape?

Iñes (just out of the door). Good soldier! I am

not escaping from you..

Push me not back! that was not the command.. Strike! you must act no otherwise. . let fall This halbert, or I run from under it..

The word is given. .'twas the queen gave it..strike, Irresolute !

Pedro. What fell?

Blanca.

Pedro.

Where is she?

Fled.

Blanca. Hold me not; pray me not; I will

pursue..

Pedro. The guard hath stopt her.

Blanca.

Pedro.

At the door? With force

done!

Ippolito. Now all the people follow the pro

cession

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 har-
mony!

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!

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!

[Advancing toward her.

Ignorance,

Ippolito. Intolerance for his betters.
Rosalba.

But not intolerance of them, is my fault.
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,

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.
I know

to

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.

not?

Rosalba. Ferrante then betrayed the secret
you!

And are you come to honour with your presence..
Ippolito. Has the Duke sign'd the contract?
Rosalba.
For what bride?
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.
Ippolito. Sport not with one your charms have
cast too low.

Rosalba. Sport not with one your hand would raise too high.

* 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.

How high, 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

Even in the rain and dew, on the weak herb
That bends before them, there too is a voice
Breathing from Him. God is not always wroth;
He pities too, and most delights in pity.
Guzman. Art thou afraid?
Son.

Father! O father! no. Shame me not thus. But to have felt thy lips Upon my brow, upon my eyes, my mouth,

Ay, and of brave ones, and for being brave;
I never said it, even when I lost thee,
Thee, my first-born, my only living son,
Precious as life. . almost, almost, as honour.
Son! thou art going into God's own glory,
And wouldst thou that thy father at one breath
Be spoil'd of his, and thine?
Son.

No, father, no!

Now sixteen years ago.. O father! save me! Guzman. Another would have said thou wert

too rash;

How many fathers, of their sons, have said it,

They shout.

FEBE. GRISELDA. ROMOALDA. ARMIDA. FRA PEPE.
Febe. Our good king Ferdinand, altho' I say it,
He is the bravest king that ever trod
Upon neat's leather, with a star to brisket.

Griselda. Death, a dog's death, to whosoe'er denies it!

Febe. He's just like one of us, as kings should be.
Griselda. Ay, he has bowels.
Febe.

Faith! has he: I saw
His Majesty hold up a string of paste
Three palms in length, and down his throat it slid,
Just like the sword down that great conjuror's.
Griselda. And then he claspt his hand on t'other
side,

So natural!

Febe. And laught as heartily
As any pickpocket when purseless wight

Cries thief, and points him out to some near sbirro,
Who looks all ways but that, and will hear first
What has been lost, and where are witnesses.

Fra Pepe. What now want ye? What hath brought ye

Into this crowd, among these men and horses? Griselda. Father! do shrive us ere we face such perils;

Trumpeters, poets, heroes, harlequins,
And overhead vast tottering catafales,
Choak-full, and mountain-high; ten thousand arms|
Around ten thousand waists, and scarce can save
them.

Fra Pepe. I have no time to shrive ye.
Febe.

God forbid That we should urge it! But yon tripe smells bravely,

And we keep many Fridays in the week;

Do not turn this fine Tuesday into one.

Fra Pepe. Knowest thou what tripe is?
Febe.

ancient records

And faint remembrances.

Romoalda. I doubt now whether all this tripe be real.

Ermida. They got it cheap, or would not give so largely;

An ounce, two ounces, to one family.

Febe. What! kings mere hucksters! better say they stole it.

Griselda. Such glorious ones would scarcely steal the cattle,

Much less what some call offal. Rob poor farmers!
Come, Febe, if we listen to her talk
We may do penance in a stiller place.

Febe. Never say "come away," my good Griselda! While they are forking it from pans and kettles Wide as the crater and as piping-hot.

O father Pepe! could you touch, see, smell it! Bees may make honeycombs; what bee could ever Make honeycomb like tripe? Ah fat! ah pith! Soft, suctionable, savory.

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