By L. Brown
ACT I
SCENE: A Room in the Monastery of San Marco, Florence.
TIME: 1490, A.D. A summer morning.
Enter the SACRISTAN and a FRIAR.
SACR.
Savonarola looks more grim to-day
Than ever. Should I speak my mind, I’d say
That he was fashioning some new great scourge
To flay the backs of men.
FRI.
‘Tis even so.
Brother Filippo saw him stand last night
In solitary vigil till the dawn
Lept o’er the Arno, and his face was such
As men may wear in Purgatory—nay,
E’en in the inmost core of Hell’s own fires.
SACR.
I often wonder if some woman’s face,
Seen at some rout in his old worldling days,
Haunts him e’en now, e’en here, and urges him
To fierier fury ‘gainst the Florentines.
FRI.
Savonarola love-sick! Ha, ha, ha!
Love-sick? He, love-sick? ‘Tis a goodly jest!
The CONfirm’d misogyn a ladies’ man!
Thou must have eaten of some strange red herb
That takes the reason captive. I will swear
Savonarola never yet hath seen
A woman but he spurn’d her. Hist! He comes.
[Enter SAVONAROLA, rapt in thought.]
Give thee good morrow, Brother.
SACR.
And therewith
A multitude of morrows equal-good
Till thou, by Heaven’s grace, hast wrought the work
Nearest thine heart.
SAV.
I thank thee, Brother, yet
I thank thee not, for that my thankfulness
(An such there be) gives thanks to Heaven alone.
FRI. [To SACR.]
‘Tis a right answer he hath given thee.
Had Sav’narola spoken less than thus,
Methinks me, the less Sav’narola he.
As when the snow lies on yon Apennines,
White as the hem of Mary Mother’s robe,
And insusceptible to the sun’s rays,
Being harder to the touch than temper’d steel,
E’en so this great gaunt monk white-visaged
Upstands to Heaven and to Heav’n devotes
The scarped thoughts that crown the upper slopes
Of his abrupt and AUStere nature.
SACR.
Aye.
[Enter LUCREZIA BORGIA, ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI, and LEONARDO
DA VINCI. LUC. is thickly veiled.]
ST. FRAN.
This is the place.
LUC. [Pointing at SAV.]
And this the man! [Aside.] And I—
By the hot blood that courses i’ my veins
I swear it ineluctably—the woman!
SAV.
Who is this wanton?
[LUC. throws back her hood, revealing her face. SAV. starts back,
gazing at her.]
ST. FRAN.
Hush, Sir! ‘Tis my little sister
The poisoner, right well-belov’d by all
Whom she as yet hath spared. Hither she came
Mounted upon another little sister of mine—
A mare, caparison’d in goodly wise.
She—I refer now to Lucrezia—
Desireth to have word of thee anent
Some matter that befrets her.
SAV. [To LUC.]
Hence! Begone!
Savonarola will not tempted be
By face of woman e’en tho’ ‘t be, tho’ ‘tis,
Surpassing fair. All hope abandon therefore.
I charge thee: Vade retro, Satanas.
LEONARDO
Sirrah, thou speakst in haste, as is the way
Of monkish men. The beauty of Lucrezia
Commends, not discommends, her to the eyes
Of keener thinkers than I take thee for.
I am an artist and an engineer,
Giv’n o’er to subtile dreams of what shall be
On this our planet. I foresee a day
When men shall skim the earth i’ certain chairs
Not drawn by horses but sped on by oil
Or other matter, and shall thread the sky
Birdlike.
LUC.
It may be as thou sayest, friend,
Or may be not. [To SAV.] As touching this our errand,
I crave of thee, Sir Monk, an audience
Instanter.
FRI.
Lo! Here Alighieri comes.
I had methought me he was still at Parma.
[Enter DANTE.]
ST. FRAN. [To DAN.]
How fares my little sister Beatrice?
DAN.
She died, alack, last sennight.
ST. FRAN.
Did she so?
If the condolences of men avail
Thee aught, take mine.
DAN.
They are of no avail.
SAV. [To LUC.]
I do refuse thee audience.
LUC.
Then why
Didst thou not say so promptly when I ask’d it?
SAV.
Full well thou knowst that I was interrupted
By Alighieri’s entry.
[Noise without. Enter Guelfs and Ghibellines fighting.]
What is this?
LUC.
I did not think that in this cloister’d spot
There would be so much doing. I had look’d
To find Savonarola all alone
And tempt him in his uneventful cell.
Instead o’ which—Spurn’d am I? I am I.
There was a time, Sir, look to ‘t! O damnation!
What is ‘t? Anon then! These my toys, my gauds,
That in the cradle—aye, ‘t my mother’s breast—
I puled and lisped at,—‘Tis impossible,
Tho’, faith, ‘tis not so, forasmuch as ‘tis.
And I a daughter of the Borgias!—
Or so they told me. Liars! Flatterers!
Currying lick-spoons! Where’s the Hell of ‘t then?
‘Tis time that I were going. Farewell, Monk,
But I’ll avenge me ere the sun has sunk.
[Exeunt LUC., ST. FRAN., and LEONARDO, followed by DAN. SAV., having
watched LUC. out of sight, sinks to his knees, sobbing. FRI. and SACR.
watch him in amazement. Guelfs and Ghibellines continue fighting as
the Curtain falls.]
ACT II
TIME: Afternoon of same day.
SCENE: Lucrezia’s Laboratory. Retorts, test-tubes, etc. On small
Renaissance table, up c., is a great poison-bowl, the contents of
which are being stirred by the FIRST APPRENTICE. The SECOND APPRENTICE
stands by, watching him.
SECOND APP.
For whom is the brew destin’d?
FIRST APP.
I know not.
Lady Lucrezia did but lay on me
Injunctions as regards the making of ‘t,
The which I have obey’d. It is compounded
Of a malignant and a deadly weed
Found not save in the Gulf of Spezia,
And one small phial of ‘t, I am advis’d,
Were more than ‘nough to slay a regiment
Of Messer Malatesta’s condottieri
In all their armour.
SECOND APP.
I can well believe it.
Mark how the purple bubbles froth upon
The evil surface of its nether slime!
[Enter LUC.]
LUC. [To FIRST APP.]
Is ‘t done, Sir Sluggard?
FIRST APP.
Madam, to a turn.
LUC.
Had it not been so, I with mine own hand
Would have outpour’d it down thy gullet, knave.
See, here’s a ring of cunningly-wrought gold
That I, on a dark night, did purchase from
A goldsmith on the Ponte Vecchio.
Small was his shop, and hoar of visage he.
I did bemark that from the ceiling’s beams
Spiders had spun their webs for many a year,
The which hung erst like swathes of gossamer
Seen in the shadows of a fairy glade,
But now most woefully were weighted o’er
With gather’d dust. Look well now at the ring!
Touch’d here, behold, it opes a cavity
Capacious of three drops of yon fell stuff.
Dost heed? Whoso then puts it on his finger
Dies, and his soul is from his body rapt
To Hell or Heaven as the case may be.
Take thou this toy and pour the three drops in.
[Hands ring to FIRST APP. and comes down c.]
So, Sav’narola, thou shalt learn that I
Utter no threats but I do make them good.
Ere this day’s sun hath wester’d from the view
Thou art to preach from out the Loggia
Dei Lanzi to the cits in the Piazza.
I, thy Lucrezia, will be upon the steps
To offer thee with phrases seeming-fair
That which shall seal thine eloquence for ever.
O mighty lips that held the world in spell
But would not meet these little lips of mine
In the sweet way that lovers use—O thin,
Cold, tight-drawn, bloodless lips, which natheless I
Deem of all lips the most magnifical
In this our city—
[Enter the Borgias’ FOOL.]
Well, Fool, what’s thy latest?
FOOL
Aristotle’s or Zeno’s, Lady—‘tis neither latest nor last. For,
marry, if the cobbler stuck to his last, then were his latest his last
in rebus ambulantibus. Argal, I stick at nothing but cobble-stones,
which, by the same token, are stuck to the road by men’s fingers.
LUC.
How many crows may nest in a grocer’s jerkin?
FOOL
A full dozen at cock-crow, and something less under the dog-star, by
reason of the dew, which lies heavy on men taken by the scurvy.
LUC. [To FIRST APP.]
Methinks the Fool is a fool.
FOOL
And therefore, by auricular deduction, am I own twin to the Lady
Lucrezia!
[Sings.]
When pears hang green on the garden wall
With a nid, and a nod, and a niddy-niddy-o
Then prank you, lads and lasses all,
With a yea and a nay and a niddy-o.
But when the thrush flies out o’ the frost
With a nid, [etc.]
‘Tis time for loons to count the cost,
With a yea [etc.]
[Enter the PORTER.]
PORTER
O my dear Mistress, there is one below
Demanding to have instant word of thee.
I told him that your Ladyship was not
At home. Vain perjury! He would not take
Nay for an answer.
LUC.
Ah? What manner of man
Is he?
PORTER
A personage the like of whom
Is wholly unfamiliar to my gaze.
Cowl’d is he, but I saw his great eyes glare
From their deep sockets in such wise as leopards
Glare from their caverns, crouching ere they spring
On their reluctant prey.
LUC.
And what name gave he?
PORTER [After a pause.]
Something-arola.
LUC.
Savon-? [PORTER nods.] Show him up. [Exit PORTER.]
FOOL
If he be right astronomically, Mistress, then is he the greater dunce
in respect of true learning, the which goes by the globe. Argal,
‘twere better he widened his wind-pipe.
[Sings.]
Fly home, sweet self,
Nothing’s for weeping,
Hemp was not made
For lovers’ keeping, Lovers’ keeping,
Cheerly, cheerly, fly away.
Hew no more wood
While ash is glowing,
The longest grass
Is lovers’ mowing,
Lovers’ mowing,
Cheerly, [etc.]
[Re-enter PORTER, followed by SAV. Exeunt PORTER, FOOL, and FIRST and
SECOND APPS.]
SAV.
I am no more a monk, I am a man
O’ the world.
[Throws off cowl and frock, and stands forth in the costume of a
Renaissance nobleman. LUCREZIA looks him up and down.]
LUC.
Thou cutst a sorry figure.
SAV.
That
Is neither here nor there. I love you, Madam.
LUC.
And this, methinks, is neither there nor here,
For that my love of thee hath vanished,
Seeing thee thus beprankt. Go pad thy calves!
Thus mightst thou, just conceivably, with luck,
Capture the fancy of some serving-wench.
SAV.
And this is all thou hast to say to me?
LUC.
It is.
SAV.
I am dismiss’d?
LUC.
Thou art.
SAV.
‘Tis well.
[Resumes frock and cowl.]
Savonarola is himself once more.
LUC.
And all my love for him returns to me
A thousandfold!
SAV.
Too late! My pride of manhood
Is wounded irremediably. I’ll
To the Piazza, where my flock awaits me.
Thus do we see that men make great mistakes
But may amend them when the conscience wakes.
[Exit.]
LUC.
I’m half avenged now, but only half:
‘Tis with the ring I’ll have the final laugh!
Tho’ love be sweet, revenge is sweeter far.
To the Piazza! Ha, ha, ha, ha, har!
[Seizes ring, and exit. Through open door are heard, as the Curtain
falls, sounds of a terrific hubbub in the Piazza.]
ACT III
SCENE: The Piazza.
TIME: A few minutes anterior to close of preceding Act.
The Piazza is filled from end to end with a vast seething crowd that
is drawn entirely from the lower orders. There is a sprinkling of
wild-eyed and dishevelled women in it. The men are lantern-jawed,
with several days’ growth of beard. Most of them carry rude weapons—
staves, bill-hooks, crow-bars, and the like—and are in as excited a
condition as the women. Some of them are bare-headed, others affect a
kind of Phrygian cap. Cobblers predominate.
Enter LORENZO DE MEDICI and COSIMO DE MEDICI. They wear cloaks of scarlet
brocade, and, to avoid notice, hold masks to their faces.
COS.
What purpose doth the foul and greasy plebs
Ensue to-day here?
LOR.
I nor know nor care.
COS.
How thrall’d thou art to the philosophy
Of Epicurus! Naught that’s human I
Deem alien from myself. [To a COBBLER.] Make answer, fellow!
What empty hope hath drawn thee by a thread
Forth from the OBscene hovel where thou starvest?
COB.
No empty hope, your Honour, but the full
Assurance that to-day, as yesterday,
Savonarola will let loose his thunder
Against the vices of the idle rich
And from the brimming cornucopia
Of his immense vocabulary pour
Scorn on the lamentable heresies
Of the New Learning and on all the art
Later than Giotto.
COS.
Mark how absolute
The knave is!
LOR.
Then are parrots rational
When they regurgitate the thing they hear!
This fool is but an unit of the crowd,
And crowds are senseless as the vasty deep
That sinks or surges as the moon dictates.
I know these crowds, and know that any man
That hath a glib tongue and a rolling eye
Can as he willeth with them.
[Removes his mask and mounts steps of Loggia.]
Citizens!
[Prolonged yells and groans from the crowd.]
Yes, I am he, I am that same Lorenzo
Whom you have nicknamed the Magnificent.
[Further terrific yells, shakings of fists, brandishings of bill-
hooks, insistent cries of ‘Death to Lorenzo!’ ‘Down with the
Magnificent!’ Cobblers on fringe of crowd, down c., exhibit especially
all the symptoms of epilepsy, whooping-cough, and other ailments.]
You love not me.
[The crowd makes an ugly rush. LOR. appears likely to be dragged down
and torn limb from limb, but raises one hand in nick of time, and
continues:]
Yet I deserve your love.
[The yells are now variegated with dubious murmurs. A cobbler down c.
thrusts his face feverishly in the face of another and repeats, in a
hoarse interrogative whisper, ‘Deserves our love?’]
Not for the sundry boons I have bestow’d
And benefactions I have lavished
Upon Firenze, City of the Flowers,
But for the love that in this rugged breast
I bear you.
[The yells have now died away, and there is a sharp fall in dubious
murmurs. The cobbler down c. says, in an ear-piercing whisper, ‘The
love he bears us,’ drops his lower jaw, nods his head repeatedly, and
awaits in an intolerable state of suspense the orator’s next words.]
I am not a blameless man,
[Some dubious murmurs.]
Yet for that I have lov’d you passing much,
Shall some things be forgiven me.
[Noises of cordial assent.]
There dwells
In this our city, known unto you all,
A man more virtuous than I am, and
A thousand times more intellectual;
Yet envy not I him, for—shall I name him?—
He loves not you. His name? I will not cut
Your hearts by speaking it. Here let it stay
On tip o’ tongue.
[Insistent clamour.]
Then steel you to the shock!—
Savonarola.
[For a moment or so the crowd reels silently under the shock. Cobbler
down c. is the first to recover himself and cry ‘Death to Savonarola!’
The cry instantly becomes general. LOR. holds up his hand and
gradually imposes silence.]
His twin bug-bears are
Yourselves and that New Learning which I hold
Less dear than only you.
[Profound sensation. Everybody whispers ‘Than only you’ to everybody
else. A woman near steps of Loggia attempts to kiss hem of LOR.‘s
garment.]
Would you but con
With me the old philosophers of Hellas,
Her fervent bards and calm historians,
You would arise and say ‘We will not hear
Another word against them!’
[The crowd already says this, repeatedly, with great emphasis.]
Take the Dialogues
Of Plato, for example. You will find
A spirit far more truly Christian
In them than in the ravings of the sour-soul’d
Savonarola.
[Prolonged cries of ‘Death to the Sour-Souled Savonarola!’ Several
cobblers detach themselves from the crowd and rush away to read the
Platonic Dialogues. Enter SAVONAROLA. The crowd, as he makes his way
through it, gives up all further control of its feelings, and makes a
noise for which even the best zoologists might not find a good
comparison. The staves and bill-hooks wave like twigs in a storm.
One would say that SAV. must have died a thousand deaths already. He
is, however, unharmed and unruffled as he reaches the upper step of
the Loggia. LOR. meanwhile has rejoined COS. in the Piazza.]
SAV.
Pax vobiscum, brothers!
[This does but exacerbate the crowd’s frenzy.]
VOICE OF A COBBLER
Hear his false lips cry Peace when there is no
Peace!
SAV.
Are not you ashamed, O Florentines,
[Renewed yells, but also some symptoms of manly shame.]
That hearken’d to Lorenzo and now reel
Inebriate with the exuberance
Of his verbosity?
[The crowd makes an obvious effort to pull itself together.]
A man can fool
Some of the people all the time, and can
Fool all the people sometimes, but he cannot
Fool ALL the people ALL the time.
[Loud cheers. Several cobblers clap one another on the back. Cries
of ‘Death to Lorenzo!’ The meeting is now well in hand.]
To-day
I must adopt a somewhat novel course
In dealing with the awful wickedness
At present noticeable in this city.
I do so with reluctance. Hitherto
I have avoided personalities.
But now my sense of duty forces me
To a departure from my custom of
Naming no names. One name I must and shall
Name.
[All eyes are turned on LOR., who smiles uncomfortably.]
No, I do not mean Lorenzo. He
Is ‘neath contempt.
[Loud and prolonged laughter, accompanied with hideous grimaces at LOR.
Exeunt LOR. and COS.]
I name a woman’s name,
[The women in the crowd eye one another suspiciously.]
A name known to you all—four-syllabled,
Beginning with an L.
[Pause. Enter hurriedly LUC., carrying the ring. She stands,
unobserved by any one, on outskirt of crowd. SAV. utters the name:]
Lucrezia!
LUC. [With equal intensity.]
Savonarola!
[SAV. starts violently and stares in direction of her voice.]
Yes, I come, I come!
[Forces her way to steps of Loggia. The crowd is much bewildered, and
the cries of ‘Death to Lucrezia Borgia!’ are few and sporadic.]
Why didst thou call me?
[SAV. looks somewhat embarrassed.]
What is thy distress?
I see it all! The sanguinary mob
Clusters to rend thee! As the antler’d stag,
With fine eyes glazed from the too-long chase,
Turns to defy the foam-fleck’d pack, and thinks,
In his last moment, of some graceful hind
Seen once afar upon a mountain-top,
E’en so, Savonarola, didst thou think,
In thy most dire extremity, of me.
And here I am! Courage! The horrid hounds
Droop tail at sight of me and fawn away
Innocuous.
[The crowd does indeed seem to have fallen completely under the sway
of LUC.‘s magnetism, and is evidently convinced that it had been about
to make an end of the monk.]
Take thou, and wear henceforth,
As a sure talisman ‘gainst future perils,
This little, little ring.
[SAV. makes awkward gesture of refusal. Angry murmurs from the crowd.
Cries of ‘Take thou the ring!’ ‘Churl!’ ‘Put it on!’ etc.
Enter the Borgias’ FOOL and stands unnoticed on fringe of crowd.]
I hoped you ‘ld like it—
Neat but not gaudy. Is my taste at fault?
I’d so look’d forward to—
[Sob.] No, I’m not crying,
But just a little hurt.
[Hardly a dry eye in the crowd. Also swayings and snarlings
indicative that SAV.‘s life is again not worth a moment’s purchase.
SAV. makes awkward gesture of acceptance, but just as he is about to
put ring on finger, the FOOL touches his lute and sings:—]
Wear not the ring,
It hath an unkind sting,
Ding, dong, ding.
Bide a minute,
There’s poison in it,
Poison in it,
Ding-a-dong, dong, ding.
LUC.
The fellow lies.
[The crowd is torn with conflicting opinions. Mingled cries of ‘Wear
not the ring!’ ‘The fellow lies!’ ‘Bide a minute!’ ‘Death to the
Fool!’ ‘Silence for the Fool!’ ‘Ding-a-dong, dong, ding!’ etc.]
FOOL [Sings.]
Wear not the ring,
For Death’s a robber-king,
Ding, [etc.]
There’s no trinket
Is what you think it,
What you think it,
Ding-a-dong, [etc.]
[SAV. throws ring in LUC.‘s face. Enter POPE JULIUS II, with Papal
army.]
POPE
Arrest that man and woman!
[Re-enter Guelfs and Ghibellines fighting. SAV. and LUC. are arrested
by Papal officers. Enter MICHAEL ANGELO. ANDREA DEL SARTO appears for a
moment at a window. PIPPA passes. Brothers of the Misericordia go by,
singing a Requiem for Francesca da Rimini. Enter BOCCACCIO, BENVENUTO
CELLINI, and many others, making remarks highly characteristic of
themselves but scarcely audible through the terrific thunderstorm
which now bursts over Florence and is at its loudest and darkest
crisis as the Curtain falls.]
ACT IV
TIME: Three hours later.
SCENE: A Dungeon on the ground-floor of the Palazzo Civico.
The stage is bisected from top to bottom by a wall, on one side of
which is seen the interior of LUCREZIA’S cell, on the other that of
SAVONAROLA’S.
Neither he nor she knows that the other is in the next cell. The
audience, however, knows this.
Each cell (because of the width and height of the proscenium) is of
more than the average Florentine size, but is bare even to the point
of severity, its sole amenities being some straw, a hunk of bread, and
a stone pitcher. The door of each is facing the audience. Dimish
light.
LUCREZIA wears long and clanking chains on her wrists, as does also
SAVONAROLA. Imprisonment has left its mark on both of them. SAVONAROLA’S
hair has turned white. His whole aspect is that of a very old, old
man. LUCREZIA looks no older than before, but has gone mad.
SAV.
Alas, how long ago this morning seems
This evening! A thousand thousand eons
Are scarce the measure of the gulf betwixt
My then and now. Methinks I must have been
Here since the dim creation of the world
And never in that interval have seen
The tremulous hawthorn burgeon in the brake,
Nor heard the hum o’ bees, nor woven chains
Of buttercups on Mount Fiesole
What time the sap lept in the cypresses,
Imbuing with the friskfulness of Spring
Those melancholy trees. I do forget
The aspect of the sun. Yet I was born
A freeman, and the Saints of Heaven smiled
Down on my crib. What would my sire have said,
And what my dam, had anybody told them
The time would come when I should occupy
A felon’s cell? O the disgrace of it
The scandal, the incredible come-down!
It masters me. I see i’ my mind’s eye
The public prints—‘Sharp Sentence on a Monk.’
What then? I thought I was of sterner stuff
Than is affrighted by what people think.
Yet thought I so because ‘twas thought of me,
And so ‘twas thought of me because I had
A hawk-like profile and a baleful eye.
Lo! my soul’s chin recedes, soft to the touch
As half-churn’d butter. Seeming hawk is dove,
And dove’s a gaol-bird now. Fie out upon ‘t!
LUC.
How comes it? I am Empress Dowager
Of China—yet was never crown’d. This must
Be seen to.
[Quickly gathers some straw and weaves a crown, which she puts on.]
SAV.
O, what a degringolade!
The great career I had mapp’d out for me—
Nipp’d i’ the bud. What life, when I come out,
Awaits me? Why, the very Novices
And callow Postulants will draw aside
As I pass by, and say ‘That man hath done
Time!’ And yet shall I wince? The worst of Time
Is not in having done it, but in doing ‘t.
LUC.
Ha, ha, ha, ha! Eleven billion pig-tails
Do tremble at my nod imperial,—
The which is as it should be.
SAV.
I have heard
That gaolers oft are willing to carouse
With them they watch o’er, and do sink at last
Into a drunken sleep, and then’s the time
To snatch the keys and make a bid for freedom.
Gaoler! Ho, Gaoler!
[Sounds of lock being turned and bolts withdrawn. Enter the Borgias’
FOOL, in plain clothes, carrying bunch of keys.]
I have seen thy face
Before.
FOOL
I saved thy life this afternoon, Sir.
SAV.
Thou art the Borgias’ Fool?
FOOL
Say rather, was.
Unfortunately I have been discharg’d
For my betrayal of Lucrezia,
So that I have to speak like other men—
Decasyllabically, and with sense.
An hour ago the gaoler of this dungeon
Died of an apoplexy. Hearing which,
I ask’d for and obtain’d his billet.
SAV.
Fetch
A stoup o’ liquor for thyself and me.
[Exit GAOLER.]
Freedom! there’s nothing that thy votaries
Grudge in the cause of thee. That decent man
Is doom’d by me to lose his place again
To-morrow morning when he wakes from out
His hoggish slumber. Yet I care not.
[Re-enter GAOLER with a leathern bottle and two glasses.]
Ho!
This is the stuff to warm our vitals, this
The panacea for all mortal ills
And sure elixir of eternal youth.
Drink, bonniman!
[GAOLER drains a glass and shows signs of instant intoxication. SAV.
claps him on shoulder and replenishes glass. GAOLER drinks again, lies
down on floor, and snores. SAV. snatches the bunch of keys, laughs
long but silently, and creeps out on tip-toe, leaving door ajar.
LUC. meanwhile has lain down on the straw in her cell, and fallen
asleep.
Noise of bolts being shot back, jangling of keys, grating of lock, and
the door of LUC.‘S cell flies open. SAV. takes two steps across the
threshold, his arms outstretched and his upturned face transfigured
with a great joy.]
How sweet the open air
Leaps to my nostrils! O the good brown earth
That yields once more to my elastic tread
And laves these feet with its remember’d dew!
[Takes a few more steps, still looking upwards.]
Free!—I am free! O naked arc of heaven,
Enspangled with innumerable—no,
Stars are not there. Yet neither are there clouds!
The thing looks like a ceiling! [Gazes downward.] And this thing
Looks like a floor. [Gazes around.] And that white bundle yonder
Looks curiously like Lucrezia.
[LUC. awakes at sound of her name, and sits up sane.]
There must be some mistake.
LUC. [Rises to her feet.]
There is indeed!
A pretty sort of prison I have come to,
In which a self-respecting lady’s cell
Is treated as a lounge!
SAV.
I had no notion
You were in here. I thought I was out there.
I will explain—but first I’ll make amends.
Here are the keys by which your durance ends.
The gate is somewhere in this corridor,
And so good-bye to this interior!
[Exeunt SAV. and LUC. Noise, a moment later, of a key grating in a
lock, then of gate creaking on its hinges; triumphant laughs of
fugitives; loud slamming of gate behind them.
In SAV.‘s cell the GAOLER starts in his sleep, turns his face to the
wall, and snores more than ever deeply. Through open door comes a
cloaked figure.]
CLOAKED FIGURE
Sleep on, Savonarola, and awake
Not in this dungeon but in ruby Hell!
[Stabs Gaoler, whose snores cease abruptly. Enter POPE JULIUS II, with
Papal retinue carrying torches. MURDERER steps quickly back into
shadow.]
POPE [To body of GAOLER.]
Savonarola, I am come to taunt
Thee in thy misery and dire abjection.
Rise, Sir, and hear me out.
MURD. [Steps forward.]
Great Julius,
Waste not thy breath. Savonarola’s dead.
I murder’d him.
POPE
Thou hadst no right to do so.
Who art thou, pray?
MURD.
Cesare Borgia,
Lucrezia’s brother, and I claim a brother’s
Right to assassinate whatever man
Shall wantonly and in cold blood reject
Her timid offer of a poison’d ring.
POPE
Of this anon.
[Stands over body of GAOLER.]
Our present business
Is general woe. No nobler corse hath ever
Impress’d the ground. O let the trumpets speak it!
[Flourish of trumpets.]
This was the noblest of the Florentines.
His character was flawless, and the world
Held not his parallel. O bear him hence
With all such honours as our State can offer.
He shall interred be with noise of cannon,
As doth befit so militant a nature.
Prepare these obsequies.
[Papal officers lift body of GAOLER.]
A PAPAL OFFICER
But this is not
Savonarola. It is some one else.
CESARE
Lo! ‘tis none other than the Fool that I
Hoof’d from my household but two hours agone.
I deem’d him no good riddance, for he had
The knack of setting tables on a roar.
What shadows we pursue! Good night, sweet Fool,
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!
POPE
Interred shall he be with signal pomp.
No honour is too great that we can pay him.
He leaves the world a vacuum. Meanwhile,
Go we in chase of the accursed villain
That hath made escapado from this cell.
To horse! Away! We’ll scour the country round
For Sav’narola till we hold him bound.
Then shall you see a cinder, not a man,
Beneath the lightnings of the Vatican!
[Flourish, alarums and excursions, flashes of Vatican lightning, roll
of drums, etc. Through open door of cell is led in a large milk-white
horse, which the POPE mounts as the Curtain falls.]
Remember, please, before you formulate your impressions, that saying of Brown’s: ‘The thing must be judged as a whole.’ I like to think that whatever may seem amiss to us in these Four Acts of his would have been righted by collation with that Fifth which he did not live to achieve.
I like, too, to measure with my eyes the yawning gulf between stage and study. Very different from the message of cold print to our imagination are the messages of flesh and blood across footlights to our eyes and ears. In the warmth and brightness of a crowded theatre ‘Savonarola’ might, for aught one knows, seem perfect. ‘Then why,’ I hear my gentle readers asking, ‘did you thrust the play on US, and not on a theatrical manager?’
That question has a false assumption in it. In the course of the past eight years I have thrust ‘Savonarola’ on any number of theatrical managers. They have all of them been (to use the technical phrase) ‘very kind.’ All have seen great merits in the work; and if I added together all the various merits thus seen I should have no doubt that ‘Savonarola’ was the best play never produced. The point on which all the managers are unanimous is that they have no use for a play without an ending. This is why I have fallen back, at last, on gentle readers, whom now I hear asking why I did not, as Brown’s literary executor, try to finish the play myself. Can they never ask a question without a false assumption in it? I did try, hard, to finish ‘Savonarola.’
Artistically, of course, the making of such an attempt was indefensible. Humanly, not so. It is clear throughout the play—especially perhaps in Acts III and IV—that if Brown had not steadfastly in his mind the hope of production on the stage, he had nothing in his mind at all. Horrified though he would have been by the idea of letting me kill his Monk, he would rather have done even this than doom his play to everlasting unactedness. I took, therefore, my courage in both hands, and made out a scenario....
Dawn on summit of Mount Fiesole. Outspread view of Florence (Duomo, Giotto’s Tower, etc.) as seen from that eminence.—NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, asleep on grass, wakes as sun rises. Deplores his exile from Florence, LORENZO’S unappeasable hostility, etc. Wonders if he could not somehow secure the POPE’S favour. Very cynical. Breaks off: But who are these that scale the mountain-side? | Savonarola and Lucrezia | Borgia!—Enter through a trap-door, back c. [trap-door veiled from audience by a grassy ridge], SAV. and LUC. Both gasping and footsore from their climb. [Still, with chains on their wrists? or not?]—MACH. steps unobserved behind a cypress and listens.—SAV. has a speech to the rising sun—Th’ effulgent hope that westers from the east | Daily. Says that his hope, on the contrary, lies in escape To that which easters not from out the west, | That fix’d abode of freedom which men call | America! Very bitter against POPE.—LUC. says that she, for her part, means To start afresh in that uncharted land | Which austers not from out the antipod, | Australia!—Exit MACH., unobserved, down trap-door behind ridge, to betray LUC. and SAV.—Several longish speeches by SAV. and LUC. Time is thus given for MACH. to get into touch with POPE, and time for POPE and retinue to reach the slope of Fiesole. SAV., glancing down across ridge, sees these sleuth-hounds, points them out to LUC. and cries Bewray’d! LUC. By whom? SAV. I know not, but suspect | The hand of that sleek serpent Niccolo | Machiavelli.—SAV. and LUC. rush down c., but find their way barred by the footlights.—LUC. We will not be ta’en Alive. And here availeth us my lore | In what pertains to poison. Yonder herb | [points to a herb growing down r.] Is deadly nightshade. Quick, Monk! Pluck we it!—SAV. and LUC. die just as POPE appears over ridge, followed by retinue in full cry.—POPE’S annoyance at being foiled is quickly swept away on the great wave of Shakespearean chivalry and charity that again rises in him. He gives SAV. a funeral oration similar to the one meant for him in Act IV, but even more laudatory and more stricken. Of LUC., too, he enumerates the virtues, and hints that the whole terrestrial globe shall be hollowed to receive her bones. Ends by saying: In deference to this our double sorrow | Sun shall not shine to-day nor shine to-morrow.—Sun drops quickly back behind eastern horizon, leaving a great darkness on which the Curtain slowly falls.
All this might be worse, yes. The skeleton passes muster. But in the attempt to incarnate and ensanguine it I failed wretchedly. I saw that Brown was, in comparison with me, a master. Thinking I might possibly fare better in his method of work than in my own, I threw the skeleton into a cupboard, sat down, and waited to see what Savonarola and those others would do.
They did absolutely nothing. I sat watching them, pen in hand, ready to record their slightest movement. Not a little finger did they raise. Yet I knew they must be alive. Brown had always told me they were quite independent of him. Absurd to suppose that by the accident of his own death they had ceased to breathe.... Now and then, overcome with weariness, I dozed at my desk, and whenever I woke I felt that these rigid creatures had been doing all sorts of wonderful things while my eyes were shut. I felt that they disliked me. I came to dislike them in return, and forbade them my room.
Some of you, my readers, might have better luck with them than I. Invite them, propitiate them, watch them! The writer of the best Fifth Act sent to me shall have his work tacked on to Brown’s; and I suppose I could get him a free pass for the second night.
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