The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria Part 9

CLAUDIUS.

And for what?

ESCARPIN.

Certain wild chimeras haunt me, Jealousy doth tear my heart, And despairing love distracts me.

CLAUDIUS.

You in love and jealous?

ESCARPIN.

I Jealous and in love. Why marvel?

Am I such a monster?

CLAUDIUS.

What!

With Daria?

ESCARPIN.

'T is no matter What her name is, or Daria Or Maria, I would have her Both subjective and subjunctive, She verb pa.s.sive, I verb active.

CLAUDIUS.

You to love so rare a beauty?

ESCARPIN.

Yes, her beauty, though uncommon, Would lack something, if it had not My devotion.

CLAUDIUS.

How? explain:--

ESCARPIN.

Well, I prove it in this manner:-- Mr. Dullard fell in love (I do n't tell where all this happened, Or the time, for of the Dullards Every age and time give samples) With a very lovely lady: At her coach-door as he chattered One fine evening, he such nonsense Talked, that one who heard his clatter, Asked the lady in amazement If this simpleton's advances Did not make her doubt her beauty?-- But she quite gallantly answered, Never until now have I Felt so proud of my attractions, For no beauty can be perfect That all sorts of men do n't flatter.

CLAUDIUS.

What a feeble jest!

ESCARPIN.

This feeble?--

CLAUDIUS.

Yes, the very type of flatness:-- Cease buffooning, for my uncle Here is coming.

ESCARPIN.

Of his sadness Plainly is his face the mirror.

Enter Polemius and servants.

CLAUDIUS.

Jupiter doth know the anguish, My good lord, with which I venture To approach thee since this happened.

POLEMIUS.

Claudius, as thine own, I 'm sure, Thou dost feel this great disaster.

CLAUDIUS.

I my promise gave thee that To Chrysanthus . . .

POLEMIUS.

Cease; I ask thee Not to proffer these excuses, Since I do not care to have them.

CLAUDIUS.

Then it seems that all thy efforts Have been useless to unravel The strange mystery of his fate?

POLEMIUS.

With these questions do not rack me; For, though I would rather not Give the answer, still the answer Rises with such ready aptness To my lips from out my heart, That I scarcely can withstand it.

CLAUDIUS.

Why conceal it then from me, Knowing that thy blood meanders Through my veins, and that my life Owns thee as its lord and master?-- Oh! my lord, confide in me, Let thy tongue speak once the language That thine eyes so oft have spoken.

POLEMIUS.

Let the servants leave the apartment.

ESCARPIN (aside).

Ah! if beautiful Daria Would but favour my attachment, Though I have no house to give her, Lots of stories I can grant her:-- [Exeunt Escarpin and servants.

CLAUDIUS.

Now, my lord, we are alone.

POLEMIUS.

Listen then; for though to baffle Thy desire were my intention, By my miseries overmastered, I am forced to tell my secret; Not so much have I been granted License to avow my sufferings, But I am, as 't were commanded Thus to break my painful silence, Doing honestly, though sadly, Willingly the fact disclosing, Which by force had been extracted.

Hear it, Claudius: my Chrysanthus, My Chrysanthus is not absent: In this very house he 's living!-- Would the G.o.ds, ah! me, had rather Made a tomb and not a prison Of his present locked apartment!

Which is in this house, within it Is he prisoned, chained, made captive.

This surprises thee, no wonder: More surprised thou 'lt be hereafter, When thou com'st to know the reason Of a fact so strange and startling.

On that fatal day, when I Sought the mount and thou the garden, Him I found where thou didst lose him, Near the wood where he had rambled: He was taken by my soldiers At the entrance of a cavern, With Carpophorus:--oh! here Patience, patience may heaven grant me!-- It was lucky that they did not See his face, for thus it happened That the front of my dishonour Was not in his face made patent: Him they captured without knowing Who he was, it being commanded That the faces of the prisoners Should be covered, but ere captured This effectually was done By themselves, they flying backward With averted faces; he Thus was taken, but his partner, That strange prodigy of Rome-- Man in mind, wild beast in manners, Doubly thus a prodigy-- Saved himself by power of magic.

Thus Chrysanthus was sole prisoner, While the Christian crowd, disheartened, Fled for safety to the mountains From their grottoes and their caverns.

These the soldiers quickly followed, And behind in that abandoned Savage place remained but two-- Two, oh! think, a son and father.-- One a judge, too, in a cause Wicked, bad, beyond example, In a cause that outraged Caesar, And the G.o.ds themselves disparaged.

There with a delinquent son Stood I, therefore this should happen, That both clemency and rigour In my heart waged fearful battle-- Clemency in fine had won, I would have removed the bandage From his eyes and let him fly, But that instant, ah! unhappy!

Came the soldiers back, and then It were but more misery added, If they knew of my connivance: All that then my care could manage To protect him was the secret Of his name to keep well guarded.

Thus to Rome I brought him prisoner, Where pretending great exactness, That his friends should not discover Where this Christian malefactor Was imprisoned, to this house, To my own house, I commanded That he should be brought; there hidden And unknown, a few days after I in his place subst.i.tuted . . .

Ah! what will not the untrammelled Strength of arbitrary power Dare attempt? what law not trample?

Subst.i.tuted, I repeat, For my son a slave, whose strangled, Headless corse thus paid the debt Which from me were else exacted.

You will say, "Since fortune thus Has the debt so happily cancelled, Why imprison or conceal him?"-- And, thus, full of doubts, I answer That though it is true I wished not, Woe is me! the common scaffold Should his punishment make public, I as little wished his hardened Heart should know my love and pity Since it did not fear my anger: Ah! believe me, Claudius, 'Twixt the chastis.e.m.e.nt a father And an executioner gives, A great difference must be granted: One hand honours what it striketh, One disgraces, blights, and blackens.

Soon my rigour ceased, for truly, In a father's heart it lasteth Seldom long: but then what wonder, If the hand that in its anger Smites his son, in his own breast Leaves a wound that ever rankles-- I one day his prison entered With the wish (I own it frankly) To forgive him, and when I Thought he would have even thanked me For receiving a reproof, Not severe, too lenient rather, He began to praise the Christians With such earnestness and ardour, In defence of their new law, That my clemency departed, And my angrier mood returned.

I his doors and windows fastened.

In the room where he is lying, Well secured by gyves and shackles, Sparingly his food is given him, Through my hands alone it pa.s.ses, For I dare not to another Trust the care his state demandeth.

You will think in this I reached to The extreme of my disasters-- The full limits of misfortune, But not so, and if you hearken, You 'll perceive they 're but beginning, And not ended, as you fancied.

All these strange events so much Have unnerved him and unmanned him, That, forgetful of himself, Of himself he is regardless.

Nothing to the purpose speaks he.

In his incoherent language Frenzy shows itself, delusion In his thoughts and in his fancies:-- Many times I 've listened to him, Since so high-strung and abstracted Is his mind, he takes no note of Who goes in or who departeth.

Once I heard him deprecating Some despotic beauty's hardness, Saying, "Since I die for thee, Thou thy favour sure wilt grant me".

At another time he said, "Three in one, oh! how can that be?"