Would muse on?

Hæmon: Yes, a lay.

Charles: And one of love?
The word, you see, founts easy to my lips.
(With confidential archness.) 'Tis recent in my thought – as you will learn.

Hæmon: How, sir, and when?

Charles: O, when? Be not surprised! —
Well, to the lay!

(He goes.

Hæmon: Cruel! His soldiers waste
The bread of honesty, the hope of age!
Are drunken, bloody, indolent, and lust
To tear all innocence away and robe
Our loveliest in shame! – Yet me, a Greek,
He suddenly befriends!

Antonio (coming forward): Hæmon —

Hæmon: Ah, you?

Antonio: There's room between your tone and courtesy.

Hæmon: And shall be while I'm readier to bend
Over a beggar's pain than prince's fingers.

Antonio: And yet you know me better —

Hæmon: Than to believe
You're not Antonio, son of Charles di Tocca?

Antonio: I'd be your friend.

Hæmon: So would he: and he smiles.

Antonio: There are deep reasons for it.

Hæmon: With him too!
Against a miracle, you are his heir!

Antonio: I think it would be well for you to listen.
My confidence once curbed —

Hæmon: May bite and paw?
Let it! for fools are threats, and cowards. Were
You Tamerlane and mine the skull should cap
A bloody pyramid of enemies,
I'd – !

Antonio: Hear me. Will you be so blind?

Hæmon: To your
Fair graces? No, my lord – not so. Your sword
And doublet are sublimely worn! sublimely!
Your curls would tempt an empress' fingers, and —

Antonio: Why is my anger silent?

Hæmon: Let it speak
And not this subtle pride! You would be friend,
A friend to me – a friend! – Did not your father
Into a sick and sunless keep cast mine
Because he was a Greek and still a Greek,
And would not be a slave? His cunning has
Not whispered death about him as a pest?
He – he, my friend? and you? – And I on him
Should lean, and flatter – ?

Antonio: Cease: though he has stains
The times are tyrannous and men like beasts
Find mercy preservation's enemy.
You're heated with suspicion and old wrong,
But take my hand as pledge —

Hæmon (refusing it): That you'll be false?

Enter Bardas

Bardas: I've sought you, Hæmon. Antonio? We are
Well met then: to your doors my want was bent
With a request.

Antonio: Which gladly I shall hear
And if I can will grant.

Bardas: My haste is blunt —
As is my tongue.

Hæmon: Then yield it us at once,
Our mood is so.

Bardas: Hæmon, I love your sister.
Not love: I am idolatrous before
Her foot's least print, and cannot breathe or pray
But where she's sometime been and left a heaven!

Hæmon: Therefore you'll cry it maudlin at the streets?

Bardas: Necessity's not over delicate.
Antonio, sue for me. You have been apt
In all love's skill they say. My oath on it
Your words once sown upon her listening
Would not lie fruitless did they bid her yield
More than her most.

Hæmon: Bardas! Do you – Does such
Unseemliness run in your thought?

Bardas: Peace, Hæmon.
Antonio, speak.

Antonio: You're strange in this request.
Helena, whom I've seen, would little thank
The eyes that told her own where they should love.

Bardas: I saved your life, my lord.

Antonio: And I've besought
Occasion oft for loaning of some chance
Worthily to repay you. If 'tis this,
I am distrest. I cannot plead your suit.

Bardas: You cannot or you will not?

Antonio: I have said.
Ask me for service on your foes, for gold,
Faith or devotion, friendship you're aloof to,
For all that will and honor well may render
With nicety, and I'll be wings and heart,
More – drudge to your desire.

Hæmon: Nobly, my lord!
Bardas, you must atone —

Bardas: Peace, Hæmon.

Hæmon: Peace
Is goad and gall! Why do you burn my cheek
With this indignity?

Bardas: Do you ask why? (to Antonio.)
A little since one of your father's guard
Gave his command in seal to Helena
Upon the streets, to instantly repair
Unto his halls – which she must henceforth honor.
You knew it not?

Antonio: My father?

Bardas: O, well feigned.
Be sure none will suspect he is too old
For knightly feat like this – and that he has
A son!

Antonio: To Helena! my father! sealed!

Hæmon: Bardas, you bring the truth? – And so, my lord,
You stab me through another – you, my friend?

Antonio (to Bardas): Do you mean that – ?

Bardas: Until this hour I held
The race of Charles di Tocca bold, or other
But empty of all lies in deed or speech,
It grows – a little low?

Antonio: Why you are mad!
Are mad! I'm naked of this thing, and hide
No guilt behind the wonder of my face.
For Paradises brimming with all Beauty
I would not lay one fancy's weight of shame
On her you name!

Bardas: A pretty protest – but
A breath too heavenly.

Antonio: Leave sneering there!
You have repaid yourself – cast on me words
Intolerable more than loss of life.
You both shall learn this night's entangling.
But know, between her, Helena, and shame
I burn with flaming heart and fearless hand!

(Goes angrily.

Hæmon: He can be false and wear this mien of truth?

Bardas: I'll not believe!

Hæmon: But, what: my sister seized?

Bardas: Ah, what! – "He burns with flaming heart!" – have we
No flesh to understand this passion then?
Bound to the wings of wide ambition he
Will choose undowered worth? – To the ordeal
Of mere suspicion's flaming I'd not trust
The fairness of his name; but doubts in me
Are sunk with proofs.

Hæmon: No, no!

Bardas: Unyielding.

Hæmon: Proof?
He could not. No! he dare not!

Bardas: Yet the rogue
Cecco, the duke's half-seneschal, half-spy,
I passed upon the streets o'ermuch in wine,
Leaning upon a tipsier jade and spouting
With drunken mockery,

"'Sweet Helena! Fair Helena!' Pluck me, wench, but the lord Antonio knows sound nuts! And sly! Why hear you now! he gets the duke to seize on the maid! The fox! The rat! Have I not heard him in his chamber these thirty nights puff her name out his window with as many honeyed drawls of passion as – as – as – June has buds? 'Sweet Helena!' – la! 'Fair Helena!' – O! 'Dear Helena! my rose! my queen! my sun and moon and stars! Thy kiss is still at my lips, thy breast beats still on mine! my Helena!' – Um! Oh, 'tmust be a rare damsel. I'll make a sluice between her purse and mine, wench; do you hear?"

Hæmon: Well – well?

Bardas: No more. When I had struck him down,
He swore it was unswerving all and truth.
Hasting to warn I found Helena ta'en
And sought you here.

Hæmon (grasping his brows): Ah!

Bardas: Helena who is
All purity!

Hæmon: Ah sister, child! – Have I
With strength been father and with tenderness
A mother been to her unfolding years
But to see now unchastest cruelty
Pluck her white bloom to ease his idle sense
One fragrant hour? – If it be so, no flowers
Should blossom; only weeds whose withering
Can hurt no heart!

Bardas: These tears should seal fierce oaths
Against him!

Hæmon: And they shall! until God wrecks
Him in the tempest raised of his outrage!

Bardas: Then may I be the rock on which he breaks!
But hear; who comes? (Revellers are heard approaching.)
We must aside until
This mirth is past. (They conceal themselves.)

Enter revellers dressed as bacchanals and bacchantes, dancing and singing

Bacchus, hey! was a god, hei-yo!
The vine! a fig for the rest!
With locks green-crowned and lips red-warm —
The vine! the vine's the best!
He loved maids, O-o-ay! hei-yo!
The vine! a maiden's breast!
He pressed the grape, and kissed the maid! —
The cuckoo builds no nest!

(All go dancing, except Lydia and Phaon, who clasps and kisses her passionately)

Lydia (breaking from him): Do you think kisses are so cheap? You must know mine fill my purse! A pretty gallant from Naples, with laces and silks and jewels gave me this ring last year for but one. And another lover from Venice gave me this (a bracelet) – but he looked so sad when he gave it. Ah, his eyes! I'd not have cared if he had given me naught.

Phaon: Here, here, then! (Offers jewel.)

Lydia (putting it aside): They say the ladies in Venice ride with their lovers through the streets all night in boats: and the very moon shines more passionately there. Is it true?

Phaon: Yes, yes. But kiss me, Lydia! Take this jewel – my last. Be mine to-night, no other's! We'll prate of Venice another time.

Lydia: Another time we'll prate of kisses. I'll not have the jewel.

Phaon: Not have it! Now you're turning nun! a soft and virgin, silly nun! With a gray gown to hide these shoulders that – shall I whisper it?

Lydia: Devil! they're not! A nice lover called them round and fair last night. And I've been sick! And – I – cruel! cruel! cruel! (Revellers are heard returning.) There, they're coming.

Phaon: Never mind, my girl. But you mustn't scorn a man's blood when it's afire.

Re-enter Revellers singing

Bacchus, hey! was a god, hei-yo! etc.

(After which all go, except Zoe and Basil.

Zoe: O! O! O! but 'tis brave! Wine, Basil! Wine, my knight, my Bacchus! Ho! ho! my god! you wheeze like a cross-bow. Is it years, my wooer, years? – Ah! (She sighs.)

Basil: Sighs – sighs! Now look for showers.

Zoe: Basil – you were my first lover – except the duke Charles. Ah, did you see how that Helena looked when they gave her the duke's command? I was like that once. (Hæmon starts forward.)

Basil: Fiends, nymphs and saints! it's come! tears in your eyes! Zoe, stop it. Would you have mine leak and drive me to a monastery for shelter!

Zoe (sings sadly and absently):
She lay by the river, dead,
A broken reed in her hand
A nymph whom an idle god had wed
And led from her maidenland.

Basil: O, had I been born a heathen!

Zoe: He told me, Basil, I should live, a great lady, at his castle. And they should kiss my hand and courtesy to me. He meant but jest – I feared. – I feared! But – I loved him!

Basil: Now, my damsel – !

Zoe (sings):
The god was the great god Jove,
Two notes would the bent reed blow,
The one was sorrow, the other love
Enwove with a woman's woe.

Basil: Songs and snakes! Give me instead a Dominican's funeral! I'd as lief crawl bare-kneed to Rome and mouth the Pope's heel. O blessed Turks with their remorseless harems! – Zoe!