To My Wife

CHARLES DI TOCCA

A Tragedy

Nardo, a boy, and Diogenes, a philosopher

A Captain of the Guard. Soldiers, Guests,

Attendants, etc

Time: 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 is
These stones have tongue and passion.
 
 
Antonio: Then the night
Recalling dreams of dim antiquity's
Heroic bloom worked on me. – But whence are
Your steps, so late, alone?
 
 
Fulvia: From the Cardinal,
Who has but come.
 
 
Antonio: What comfort there?
 
 
Fulvia: With doom
The 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 almost
As 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 hovered
To 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 Paula

 
Helena: Antonio!
 
 
Antonio: My Helena, what is it? You are wan
And tremble as a blossom quick with fear
Of 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 from
No power that's more than frenzied fantasy!
 
 
Antonio: Who prophesies? Who now upon this isle
More than visible and present day
Can gather to his eye? Tell me.
 
 
Helena: The monk —
Ah, chide me not! – mad Agabus, who can
Unsphere dark spirits from their evil airs
And show all things of love or death, seized me
As hither I stole to thee. With wild looks
And wilder lips he vented on my ear
Boding more wild than both. "Sappho!" he cried,
"Sappho! Sappho!" and probed my eyes as if
Destiny 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 he
Has often cleft the future with his ken,
Seen through it to some lurking misery
And mar of love: or the dim knell of death
Heard and revealed.
 
 
Antonio: A witless monk who thinks
God lives but to fulfil his prophecies!
 
 
Helena: You know him not. 'Tis told in youth he loved
One treacherous, and in avenge made fierce
Treaty with Hell that lends him sight of all
Ills that arise from it to mated hearts!
Yet look not so, my lord! I'll trust thine eyes
That 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 night
And flute us lover songs of happiness!
 
 
Helena: Nor dare upon a duller note while here
We 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 found
Wounded Adonis dead, and to forget,
Like Sappho leaped, 'tis said, from yonder cliff
Down 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 flow
A little was moved.
 
 
Helena: Not you, not you! I'll change
My tears to laughter, if but fantasy
May so unmettle you! Not moved, indeed!
Not moved, Antonio?
 
 
Antonio: Well, let us off,
My Helena, with these numb awes that wind
About our joy.
 
 
Helena: Thy kiss then, for it can
Drive 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 be
When no more gloom's in the world!
 
 
Antonio: But 'tis thy lips
That lend it might. If I pressed other —
 
 
Helena: Other!
You should not know that any other lips
Could e'er be pressed; I'll have no kiss but his
Who 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 glooms
To-night seem ominous – as cloud-flakes flung
Upward before the heaving of the west.
(In fright) Oh!
 
 
Antonio: Helena!
 
 
Helena: See, see! 'tis Agabus!
 

Enter Agabus unkempt and distracted

 
Agabus: O – lovers! lovers! Lord have none of them!
 
 
Antonio: Good monk —
 
 
Agabus: O – yes, yes, yes. You'd give me gold
To 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 tomb
Awakes and waits?
 
 
Antonio: He is but mad.
 
 
Helena: But mad.
 
 
Antonio: Yet fear you? still?
 

(A shout is heard.)

 
Helena: Who is it? soldiers come
From Arta?
 
 
Antonio: Yes.
 
 
Helena: And by this road! – They must
Not 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 wind
Under my feet!
 
 
Antonio: Are all things thus become
Omen and dread to you?
 
 
Helena: O, but it is
The pillar grieving Venus leant upon
Ere to forget she leapt, and wrote,
When falls this pillar tall and proud
Let 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 night
Are burdened with foreboding! And it seems —
 
 
Antonio: You must not, Helena!
 
 
Helena: My love, my lord —
Touch me lest I forget my natural flesh
In this unnatural awe! (He takes her to him.)
Ah how thy arms
Warm the cold moan and misery of fear
Out of my veins!
 
 
Antonio: You rave, but in me stir
Again 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 joys
Such as shall legend ecstasy about
Our knitted names when distant lovers dream.
 
 
Helena: I'll fear no more, then —
 
 
Antonio: Yet?
 
 
Helena: My lord, let us
Unloose this strangling secrecy and be
Open in love. My brother, Hæmon, let
Our hearts betrothed exchange and hope be told
Him and thy father!
 
 
Antonio: This cannot be – now
 
 
Helena: It cannot be, and you a god? I'll bow
Before 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 yesterday
I never knew pass in the portal to
My father's ear, but it came out his mouth
Headlong and dark with curses.
 
 
Helena: Yet of late
He 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 do
You say so – is it kind?
 
 
Antonio: Why? – why? Because
Words were they miracles of beauty could
As little reveal you as a taper's ray
The lone profundity and space of night!
 
 
Helena: And yet —
 
 
Antonio: And yet?
 
 
Helena: I'll hold you not too false
If sometimes they trip out upon your lips.
 
 
Antonio: Or to my father's eye?
 
 
Helena: If he but look
Upon me for thy sake.
 
 
Antonio: He smiled, you say?
 
 
Helena: Gently, as one might in forgetting pain.
 
 
Antonio: Perhaps: for some unwonted softness seems
Near him. But yesterday he called for song,
Dancing and wine.
 
 
Helena: Then tell him! These are years
So dyed in crime that secrecy must seem
Yoke-mate of guilt.
 
 
Antonio: Fear has bewitched you – shame!
 
 
Helena: Antonio, love's wave has cast us high
I would do all lest now it turn to fate
Under our feet and draw us out —
 
 
Antonio: 'Twill not!
 

Enter Paula

 
Paula: My lady, some one comes.
 
 
Helena: And is the world
Not 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 moods
Feverous bitter.
 
 
Antonio: Kindness then shall quench them.
But now, away. Forget this dread and be you
By day my lark, by night my nightingale,
Not a sad bird of boding!
 
 
Helena: With the day
All will be well.
 
 
Antonio: Remember then you are
Only a little slept from your life's shore
Out on the infinite of love, whose air
Is 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 Hæmon

 
Charles: 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 you
Would muse on?