Pippa Passes/III
III.—EVENING.
Scene.—Inside the Turret on the Hill above Asolo. Luigi and his Mother entering.
Mother. If there blew wind, you ’d hear a long sigh, easingThe utmost heaviness of music’s heart. Luigi. Here in the archway? Luigi. Here in the archway?Mother. Oh no, no—in farther,Where the echo is made, on the ridge.Where the echo is made, on the ridge.Luigi. Here surely, thenHow plain the tap of my heel as I leaped up!Hark—“Lucius Junius!” The very ghost of a voiceWhose body is caught and kept by … what are those?Mere withered wallflowers, waving overhead?They seem an elvish group with thin bleached hairThat lean out of their topmost fortress—lookAnd listen, mountain men, to what we say,Hand under chin of each grave earthy face.Up and show faces all of you!—“All of you!”That’s the king dwarf with the scarlet comb; old Franz,Come down and meet your fate? Hark—“Meet your fate!” Mother. Let him not meet it, my Luigi—do not Go to his City! Putting crime aside,Half of these ills of Italy are feigned:Your Pellicos and writers for effect,Write for effect.Write for effect.Luigi. Hush! Say A. writes, and B. Mother. These A.s and B.s write for effect, I say.Then, evil is in its nature loud, while goodIs silent; you hear each petty injury,None of his virtues; he is old beside,Quiet and kind, and densely stupid. WhyDo A. and B. not kill him themselves?Do A. and B. not kill him themselves?Luigi. They teachOthers to kill him—me—and, if I fail,Others to succeed; now, if A. tried and failed,I could not teach that: mine ’s the lesser task.Mother, they visit night by night…Mother, they visit night by night…Mother.l —You, Luigi?Ah, will you let me tell you what you are? Luigi. Why not? Oh, the one thing you fear to hint,You may assure yourself I say and sayEver to myself! At times—nay, even as nowWe sit—I think my mind is touched, suspectAll is not sound: but is not knowing that,What constitutes one sane or otherwise?I know I am thus—so, all is right again.I laugh at myself as through the town I walk,And see men merry as if no ItalyWere suffering; then I ponder—“I am rich,Young, healthy; why should this fact trouble me,More than it troubles these?” But it does trouble.No, trouble ’s a bad word: for as I walkThere ’s springing and melody and giddiness,And old quaint turns and passages of my youth, Dreams long forgotten, little in themselves,Return to me—whatever may amuse me:And earth seems in a truce with me, and heavenAccords with me, all things suspend their strife,The very cicala laughs “There goes he, and there!Feast him, the time is short; he is on his wayFor the world’s sake: feast him this once, our friend!”And in return for all this, I can tripCheerfully up the scaffold-steps. I goThis evening, mother!This evening, mother!Mother. But mistrust yourself—Mistrust the judgment you pronounce on him! Luigi. Oh, there I feel—am sure that I am right! Mother. Mistrust your judgment then, of the mere meansTo this wild enterprise. Say, you are right,—How should one in your state e’er bring to passWhat would require a cool head, a cold heart,And a calm hand? You never will escape. Luigi. Escape? To even wish that, would spoil all.The dying is best part of it. Too muchHave I enjoyed these fifteen years of mine,To leave myself excuse for longer life:Was not life pressed down, running o’er with joy,That I might finish with it ere my fellowsWho, sparelier feasted, make a longer stay?I was put at the board-head, helped to allAt first; I rise up happy and content.God must be glad one loves his world so much.I can give news of earth to all the deadWho ask me:—last year’s sunsets, and great starsWhich had a right to come first and see ebbThe crimson wave that drifts the sun away— Those crescent moons with notched and burning rimsThat strengthened into sharp fire, and there stood,Impatient of the azure—and that dayIn March, a double rainbow stopped the storm—May’s warm slow yellow moonlit summer nights—Gone are they, but I have them in my soul! Mother. (He will not go!) Mother. (He will not go!)Luigi. You smile at me? ’Tis true,—Voluptuousness, grotesqueness, ghastliness,Environ my devotedness as quaintlyAs round about some antique altar wreatheThe rose festoons, goats’ horns, and oxen’s skulls. Mother. See now: you reach the city, you must crossHis threshold—how?His threshold—how?Luigi. Oh, that’s if we conspired!Then would come pains in plenty, as you guess—But guess not how the qualities most fitFor such an office, qualities I have,Would little stead me, otherwise employed,Yet prove of rarest merit only here.Every one knows for what his excellenceWill serve, but no one ever will considerFor what his worst defect might serve: and yetHave you not seen me range our coppice yonderIn search of a distorted ash?—I findThe wry spoilt branch a natural perfect bow.Fancy the thrice-sage, thrice-precautioned manArriving at the palace on my errand!No, no! I have a handsome dress packed up—White satin here, to set off my black hair;In I shall march—for you may watch your life outBehind thick walls, make friends there to betray you; More than one man spoils everything. March straight—Only, no clumsy knife to fumble for.Take the great gate, and walk (not saunter) onThro’ guards and guards——I have rehearsed it allInside the turret here a hundred times.Don’t ask the way of whom you meet, observe!But where they cluster thickliest is the doorOf doors; they ’ll let you pass—they ’ll never blabEach to the other, he knows not the favorite,Whence he is bound and what ’s his business now.Walk in—straight up to him; you have no knife:Be prompt, how should he scream? Then, out with you!Italy, Italy, my Italy!You ’re free, you ’re free! Oh mother, I could dreamThey got about me—Andrea from his exile,Pier from his dungeon, Gaultier from his grave! Mother. Well, you shall go. Yet seems this patriotismThe easiest virtue for a selfish manTo acquire: he loves himself—and next, the world—If he must love beyond,—but naught between:As a short-sighted man sees naught midwayHis body and the sun above. But youAre my adored Luigi, ever obedientTo my least wish, and running o’er with love:I could not call you cruel or unkind.Once more, your ground for killing him!—then go! Luigi. Now do you try me, or make sport of me?How first the Austrians got these provinces…(If that is all, I ’ll satisfy you soon) —Never by conquest but by cunning, forThat treaty whereby…That treaty whereby…Mother. Well?That treaty whereby… Well?Luigi. (Sure, he ’s arrived,The tell-tale cuckoo: spring ’s his confidant,And he lets out her April purposes!)Or … better goat once to modern time,He has … they have … in fact, I understandBut can’t restate the matter; that ’s my boast:Others could reason it out to you, and proveThings they have made me feel.Things they have made me feel.Mother. Why go to-night?Morn ’s for adventure. Jupiter is nowA morning-star. I cannot hear you, Luigi! Luigi. “I am the bright and morning-star,” saith God—And, “to such an one I give the morning-star,”The gift of the morning-star! Have I God’s giftOf the morning-star?Of the morning-star?Mother. Chiara will love to seeThat Jupiter an evening-star next June. Luigi. True, mother. Well for those who live through June!Great noontides, thunder-storms, all glaring pompsThat triumph at the heels of June the godLeading his revel through our leafy world.Yes, Chiara will be here.Yes, Chiara will be here.Mother. In June: remember,Yourself appointed that month for her coming. Luigi. Was that low noise the echo? Luigi. Was that low noise the echo?Mother. The night-wind.She must be grown—with her blue eyes upturnedAs if life were one long and sweet surprise:In June she comes. In June she comes.Luigi. We were to see togetherThe Titian at Treviso. There, again![From without is heard the voice of Pippa, singing—
A king lived long ago,In the morning of the world,When earth was nigher heaven than now:And the king’s locks curled,Disparting o’er a forehead fullAs the milk-white space ’twixt horn and hornOf some sacrificial bull—Only calm as a babe new-born:For he was got to a sleepy mood,So safe from all decrepitude,Age with its bane, so sure gone by,(The gods so loved him while he dreamed)That, having lived thus long, there seemedNo need the king should ever die.
Luigi. No need that sort of king should ever die!
Among the rocks his city was:Before his palace, in the sun,He sat to see his people pass,And judge them every oneFrom its threshold of smooth stone.They haled him many a valley-thiefCaught in the sheep-pens, robber-chiefSwarthy and shameless, beggar-cheat,Spy-prowler, or rough pirate foundOn the sea-sand left aground;And sometimes clung about his feet,With bleeding lip and burning cheek,A woman, bitterest wrong to speak Of one with sullen thickset brows:And sometimes from the prison-houseThe angry priests a pale wretch brought,Who through some chink had pushed and pressedOn knees and elbows, belly and breast,Worm-like into the temple,—caughtHe was by the very god,Who ever in the darkness strodeBackward and forward, keeping watchO’er his brazen bowls, such rogues to catch!These, all and every one,The king judged, sitting in the sun.
Luigi. That king should still judge sitting in the sun!
His councillors, on left and right,Looked anxious up,—but no surpriseDisturbed the king’s old smiling eyesWhere the very blue had turned to white.’T is said, a Python scared one dayThe breathless city, till he came,With forky tongue and eyes on flame,Where the old king sat to judge alway;But when he saw the sweepy hairGirt with a crown of berries rareWhich the god will hardly give to wearTo the maiden who singeth, dancing bareIn the altar-smoke by the pine-torch lights,At his wondrous forest rites,—Seeing this, he did not dareApproach that threshold in the sun,Assault the old king smiling there.Such grace had kings when the world begun![Pippa passes.
Luigi. And such grace have they, now that the world ends!The Python at the city, on the throne,And brave men, God would crown for slaying him,Lurk in bye-corners lest they fall his prey.Are crowns yet to be won in this late time,Which weakness makes me hesitate to reach?’T is God’s voice calls: how could I stay? Farewell!
Talk by the way, while Pippa is passing from the Turret to the Bishop’s Brother's House, close to the Duomo S. Maria. Poor Girls sitting on the Steps.
1st Girl. There goes a swallow to Venice—the stout seafarer!Seeing those birds fly, makes one wish for wings.Let us all wish; you wish first!Let us all wish; you wish first!2nd Girl. I? This sunsetTo finish. 3rd Girl. That old—somebody I know,Grayer and older than my grandfather,To give me the same treat he gave last week—Feeding me on his knee with fig-peckers,Lampreys and red Breganze-wine, and mumblingThe while some folly about how well I fare,Let sit and eat my supper quietly:Since had he not himself been late this morningDetained at—never mind where,—had he not…“Eh, baggage, had I not!”—“Eh, baggage, had I not!”—2nd Girl. How she can lie! 3rd girl. Look there—by the nails! 3rd girl. Look there—by the nails!2nd Girl. What makes your fingers red! 3rd Girl. Dipping them into wine to write bad words withOn the bright table: how he laughed!On the bright table: how he laughed!1st Girl. My turn.Spring ’s come and summer ’s coming. I would wearA long loose gown, down to the feet and hands,With plaits here, close about the throat, all day;And all night lie, the cool long nights, in bed;And have new milk to drink, apples to eat,Deuzans and junetings, leather-coats … ah, I should say,This is away in the fields—miles!This is away in the fields—miles!3rd Girl. Say at onceYou ’d be at home: she ’d always be at home!Now comes the story of the farm amongThe cherry orchards, and how April snowedWhite blossoms on her as she ran. Why, fool,They ’ve rubbed the chalk-mark out, how tall you were,Twisted your starling’s neck, broken his cage,Made a dung-hill of your garden!Made a dung-hill of your garden!1st Girl. They, destroyMy garden since I left them? well—perhaps!I would have done so: so I hope they have!A fig-tree curled out of our cottage wall;They called it mine, I have forgotten why,It must have been there long ere I was born:Cric—cric—I think I hear the wasps o’erheadPricking the papers strung to flutter thereAnd keep off birds in fruit-time—coarse long papers,And the wasps eat them, prick them through and through. 3rd Girl. How her mouth twitches! Where was I?—beforeShe broke in with her wishes and long gowns And wasps—would I be such a fool!—Oh, here!This is my way: I answer every oneWho asks me why I make so much of him—(If you say, “you love him”—straight “he’ll not be gulled!”)“He that seduced me when I was a girlThus high—had eyes like yours, or hair like yours,Brown, red, white,”—as the case may be: that pleases!See how that beetle burnishes in the path!There sparkles he along the dust: and, there—Your journey to that maize-tuft spoiled at least! 1st Girl. When I was young, they said if you killed oneOf those sunshiny beetles, that his friendUp there, would shine no more that day nor next. 2nd Girl. When you were young? Nor are you young, that ’s true.How your plump arms, that were, have dropped away!Why, I can span them. Cecco beats you still?No matter, so you keep your curious hair.I wish they ’d find a way to dye our hairYour color—any lighter tint, indeed,Than black: the men say they are sick of black,Black eyes, black hair!Black eyes, black hair!4th Girl. Sick of yours, like enough.Do you pretend you ever tasted lampreysAnd ortolans? Giovita, of the palace,Engaged (but there ’s no trusting him) to slice mePolenta with a knife that had cut upAn ortolan. 2nd Girl. Why, there! Is not that PippaWe are to talk to, under the window,—quick,——Where the lights are? Where the lights are?1st Girl. That she? No, or she would sing,For the Intendant said…For the Intendant said…3rd Girl. Oh, you sing first!Then, if she listens and comes close … I’ll tell you,—Sing that song the young English noble made,Who took you for the purest of the pure,And meant to leave the world for you—what fun! 2nd Girl [sings].
You ’ll love me yet!—and I can tarry Your love’s protracted growing:June reared that bunch of flowers you carry, From seeds of April’s sowing.
I plant a heartful now: some seed At least is sure to strike,And yield—what you ’ll not pluck indeed, Not love, but, may be, like.
You ’ll look at least on love’s remains, A grave’s one violet:Your look?—that pays a thousand pains. What ’s death? You ’ll love me yet!
3rd Girl [to Pippa, who approaches]. Oh, you may come closer—we shall not eat you! Why, you seem the very person that the great rich handsome Englishman has fallen so violently in love with. I ’ll tell you all about it.