Satanella (1932)/Chapter 5
Prison cell . . . Around black columns
Reaching over with their shoulders;
On the window-bar sheer cobwebs
Flutter with the night-winds breathing.
Echo of the wind falls hither
With a groan, and long-drawn sighing
As if shadows of men slaughtered
Passed in haste across the chamber.
Echoes of the watchman's footsteps
Penetrate with deadened sound here,
As if dying heart had quivered
With its final struggling tempo.
Heavy head on chest reclining
All alone sits Roderigo;
Storm of thoughts his soul harrassing
As a boat tossed on an ocean.
Shame and love, with pain and anger,
Rays of hope and clouds of doubting,
Withered leaves of treasured mem'ries
All are twirling in a whirlpool
Round his heavy, tired forehead,
As a flock of crows and jack-daws,
Host of owls, bats and buzzards
Flying round the weathered turret
Of an aged, leaning tower.
But one hope still gives him courage,
Is his sunshine in this darkness;
He knows well the camping gypsies,
Knows their weapons, strength and numbers,
And he hopes in this, believing
That perhaps with sudden onslaught
Or by some ruse, craft'ly plotted
They will free their Satanella
From the claws of angered people,
Who, much like a savage dragon
Sitting at a cavern's entrance
Waiting for its helpless victim,
Night and day, they too are waiting
Under Satanella's window
Seething mass forever shouting;
"Burn at stake the witch of witches!"
That is why, soon after daybreak,
Ere the guards changed at the prison,
He sent Beppo, childhood comrade,
To the gypsies 'twixt the ruins.
Since he sent him, he is waiting
Stretched upon a rack of doubting,
Till he hears the door-hinge grating
And the thud of heavy footsteps. . .
Beppo entered.—In his features,
In the shrug of both his shoulders,
In his bosom's heavy sighing,
Roderigo read the answer.
Overnight from out the ruins
Suddenly the camp had vanished,
Not a single clew remaining.
Beppo crawled through every cavern,
But the peaceful, quiet ruins
Just sent back the hollow echo
Of his footstep. . . . They fled, no doubt,
When they saw the angered people,
Fled because they, too, feared capture,
Feared the court and feared its sentence.
But his second message further
Drew the dark clouds that have hovered
Over Roderigo's forehead.
Pestilence is further spreading,
People rebel more than ever,
And rush, full strength toward the castle
All demanding in a body
To console the angry heavens,
That at stake burns Satanella,
Whose blaspheme against Madonna
And against the bishop's monstrance
Brought the plague upon the island.
Sadly listened Roderigo,
Sadly listened to the message.
He no longer cared or thought of
His own future, his own being,
Satanella's life however,
Now to him seemed doubly treasured.
Long he sat there, meditating
Till at length his friend he spoke to:
"Strike a tune on yon guitar strings,
Play for me, though well I know that
All the strings have snapped asunder
On my heart's guitar forever.
Even then, my friend, play for me,
And perhaps my dread of future
And the past day's bitter anguish
I shall bury in your canto."
Beppo strummed the old guitar strings.
Queer the song within the prison!
Lights and shadows, hell and heaven,
Pleasure, torture in it mingle.
About life sings faithful comrade;
Sings about the heart's first longing,
Love's embracing, tender kisses,
Of young mother's joyous dreaming
As she leans o'er baby's cradle.
And it sounds like winds abreathing
As they slumber in the blossoms,
Or relate their olden fables
'twixt the bull rush in the moonlight.
About life sings faithful comrade;
Sings about fair lady's beauty,
Sings about her charms so tempting,
Sings of tournaments, carousals,
And of serenades at moonlight.
And it sounds as hollow metals
Or as bugle's joyous flourish,
As a song beneath the window,
Or in fields the skylark's longing.
About life sings faithful comrade;
Sings about soul's youthful dreaming,
Sings of yearning, futile wishes,
Of young days so often squandered,
Sings of life, when all its flowers
Have been singed by flames of passion.
And it sounds as night owls' hooting,
As its crying and complaining,
As the tempest howls, when autumn
Flies through fog across the stubble.
Song's last strain was not yet ended
When the doors were flung wide open
And through them, with solemn footsteps
Walked the herald of the order.
On his chest, to knees extending
'gainst the black a white cross flashes,
All about him, bright escutcheons,
In one hand, a gold-topped scepter.
Just behind him, judge in velvet,
Pale of cheek and stern of vision.
Following him, knights in armor,
Soldiers bearing blazing torches,
And within the hallway's darkness
Stood the guards—like clouds of tempests.
Forward quick sprang Roderigo,
Blood-filled veins rose on his forehead,
As he saw 'twixt judge's fingers
Shining sheet of crackling parchment.
He reached hipwise—but what pity—
He forgot there was no sabre,
To the heart he reached, then faltered,
Fell the hand—then fell the body.
In dead silence judge is reading
From the sheet of trembling parchment
With an icy voice, the judgment:
"You have broken rite most sacred,
Drew a sword against grand master,
With a youthful witch held meetings
Secretly, 'gainst holy promise—
To your death you have been sentenced.
But because you once defended
'gainst the Turk in many battles,
Sacred creed and order's honor,
Therefore judges changed their sentence.
You shall stand with head clear shaven
Without cloak and without armour,
Round your neck a toughened cordage,
To be gazed at by the people.
Thus you'll stand and shall behold there
When at stake they'll stand and burn her,
Satanella, witch of witches.
And after her execution
You shall spend your life's remainder
'twixt the walls of our castle,
Till, with some great deed in battle,
You'll efface with your own blood stream
Your heart's guilt and our dishonor."
Judges finished and then left him
With a solemn stride. . . . Then quiet. . . .
Only night now casts its shadows
On the wall, o'er floor and corners.
With a thud snapped one guitar string
And its echo met, ere dying
Near the vaulted arch, the echo
Of the knight's deep heavy sighing.
Now they merged, to sound together
Through the heart of Roderigo,
Sounded through the hall and chamber,
Flew betwixt the endless ages,
Still resound within my bosom
With love's torment, pain and longing,
Satanella! Satanella!
