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_ ACT IV
A few weeks later. The new music room in the Palace of Mantua. Windows on both sides admitting a view of the lake, so that the hall looks like a galley surrounded by water. Outside, morning: the lake, the sky, and the lines of poplars on the banks, are all made of various textures of luminous blue. From the gardens below, bay trees raise their flowering branches against the windows. In every window an antique statue: the Mantuan Muse, the Mantuan Apollo, etc. In the walls between the windows are framed panels representing allegorical triumphs: those nearest the spectator are the triumphs of Chastity and of Fortitude. At the end of the room, steps and a balustrade, with a harpsichord and double basses on a dais. The roof of the room is blue and gold; a deep blue ground, constellated with a gold labyrinth in relief. Round the cornice, blue and gold also, the inscription: "RECTAS PETO," and the name Ferdinandus Mantuae Dux.
The PRINCESS HIPPOLYTA of Mirandola, cousin to the DUKE; and DIEGO. HIPPOLYTA is very young, but with the strength and grace, and the candour, rather of a beautiful boy than of a woman. She is dazzlingly fair; and her hair, arranged in waves like an antique amazon's, is stiff and lustrous, as if made of threads of gold. The brows are wide and straight, like a man's; the glance fearless, but virginal and almost childlike. HIPPOLYTA is dressed in black and gold, particoloured, like Mantegna's Duchess. An old man, in scholar's gown, the Princess's Greek Tutor, has just introduced DIEGO and retired.
DIEGO.
The Duke your cousin's greeting and service, illustrious damsel. His Highness bids me ask how you are rested after your journey hither.
PRINCESS.
Tell my cousin, good Signor Diego, that I am touched at his concern for me. And tell him, such is the virtuous air of his abode, that a whole night's rest sufficed to right me from the fatigue of two hours' journey in a litter; for I am new to that exercise, being accustomed to follow my poor father's hounds and falcons only on horseback. You shall thank the Duke my cousin for his civility. (PRINCESS laughs.)
DIEGO.
(bowing, and keeping his eyes on the PRINCESS as he speaks)
His Highness wished to make his fair cousin smile. He has told me often how your illustrious father, the late Lord of Mirandola, brought his only daughter up in such a wise as scarcely to lack a son, with manly disciplines of mind and body; and that he named you fittingly after Hippolyta, who was Queen of the Amazons, virgins unlike their vain and weakly sex.
PRINCESS.
She was; and wife of Theseus. But it seems that the poets care but little for the like of her; they tell us nothing of her, compared with her poor predecessor, Cretan Ariadne, she who had given Theseus the clue of the labyrinth. Methinks that maze must have been mazier than this blue and gold one overhead. What say you, Signor Diego?
DIEGO.
(who has started slightly)
Ariadne? Was she the predecessor of Hippolyta? I did not know it. I am but a poor scholar, Madam; knowing the names and stories of gods and heroes only from songs and masques. The Duke should have selected some fitter messenger to hold converse with his fair learned cousin.
PRINCESS.
(gravely)
Speak not like that, Signor Diego. You may not be a scholar, as you say; but surely you are a philosopher. Nay, conceive my meaning: the fame of your virtuous equanimity has spread further than from this city to my small dominions. Your precocious wisdom--for you seem younger than I, and youths do not delight in being very wise--your moderation in the use of sudden greatness, your magnanimous treatment of enemies and detractors; and the manner in which, disdainful of all personal advantage, you have surrounded the Duke my cousin with wisest counsellors and men expert in office--such are the results men seek from the study of philosophy.
DIEGO.
(at first astonished, then amused, a little sadly)
You are mistaken, noble maiden. 'Tis not philosophy to refrain from things that do not tempt one. Riches or power are useless to me. As for the rest, you are mistaken also. The Duke is wise and valiant, and chooses therefore wise and valiant counsellors.
PRINCESS.
(impetuously)
You are eloquent, Signor Diego, even as you are wise! But your words do not deceive me. Ambition lurks in every one; and power intoxicates all save those who have schooled themselves to use it as a means to virtue.
DIEGO.
The thought had never struck me; but men have told me what you tell me now.
PRINCESS.
Even Antiquity, which surpasses us so vastly in all manner of wisdom and heroism, can boast of very few like you. The noblest souls have grown tyrannical and rapacious and foolhardy in sudden elevation. Remember Alcibiades, the beloved pupil of the wisest of all mortals. Signor Diego, you may have read but little; but you have meditated to much profit, and must have wrestled like some great athlete with all that baser self which the divine Plato has told us how to master.
DIEGO.
(shaking his head)
Alas, Madam, your words make me ashamed, and yet they make me smile, being so far of the mark! I have wrestled with nothing; followed only my soul's blind impulses.
PRINCESS.
(gravely)
It must be, then, dear Signor Diego, as the Pythagoreans held: the discipline of music is virtuous for the soul. There is a power in numbered and measured sound very akin to wisdom; mysterious and excellent; as indeed the Ancients fabled in the tales of Orpheus and Amphion, musicians and great sages and legislators of states. I have long desired your conversation, admirable Diego.
DIEGO.
(with secret contempt)
Noble maiden, such words exceed my poor unscholarly appreciation. The antique worthies whom you name are for me merely figures in tapestries and frescoes, quaint greybeards in laurel wreaths and helmets; and I can scarcely tell whether the Ladies Fortitude and Rhetoric with whom they hold converse, are real daughters of kings, or mere Arts and Virtues. But the Duke, a learned and judicious prince, will set due store by his youthful cousin's learning. As for me, simpleton and ignoramus that I am, all I see is that Princess Hippolyta is very beautiful and very young.
PRINCESS.
(sighing a little, but with great simplicity)
I know it. I am young, and perhaps crude; although I study hard to learn the rules of wisdom. You, Diego, seem to know them without study.
DIEGO.
I know somewhat of the world and of men, gracious Princess, but that can scarce be called knowing wisdom. Say rather knowing blindness, envy, cruelty, endless nameless folly in others and oneself. But why should you seek to be wise? you who are fair, young, a princess, and betrothed from your cradle to a great prince? Be beautiful, be young, be what you are, a woman.
[Diego has said this last word with emphasis, but the Princess has not noticed the sarcasm in his voice.]
PRINCESS.
(shaking her head)
That is not my lot. I was destined, as you said, to be the wife of a great prince; and my dear father trained me to fill that office.
DIEGO.
Well, and to be beautiful, young, radiant; to be a woman; is not that the office of a wife?
PRINCESS.
I have not much experience. But my father told me, and I have gathered from books, that in the wives of princes, such gifts are often thrown away; that other women, supplying them, seem to supply them better. Look at my cousin's mother. I can remember her still beautiful, young, and most tenderly loving. Yet the Duke, my uncle, disdained her, and all she got was loneliness and heartbreak. An honourable woman, a princess, cannot compete with those who study to please and to please only. She must either submit to being ousted from her husband's love, or soar above it into other regions.
DIEGO.
(interested)
Other regions?
PRINCESS.
Higher ones. She must be fit to be her husband's help, and to nurse his sons to valour and wisdom.
DIEGO.
I see. The Prince must know that besides all the knights that he summons to battle, and all the wise men whom he hears in council, there is another knight, in rather lighter armour and quicker tired, another counsellor, less experienced and of less steady temper, ready for use. Is this great gain?
PRINCESS.
It is strange that being a man, you should conceive of women from----
DIEGO.
From a man's standpoint?
PRINCESS.
Nay; methinks a woman's. For I observe that women, when they wish to help men, think first of all of some transparent masquerade, donning men's clothes, at all events in metaphor, in order to be near their lovers when not wanted.
DIEGO.
(hastily)
Donning men's clothes? A masquerade? I fail to follow your meaning, gracious maiden.
PRINCESS.
(simply)
So I have learned at least from our poets. Angelica, and Bradamante and Fiordispina, scouring the country after their lovers, who were busy enough without them. I prefer Penelope, staying at home to save the lands and goods of Ulysses, and bringing up his son to rescue and avenge him.
DIEGO.
(reassured and indifferent)
Did Ulysses love Penelope any better for it, Madam? better than poor besotted Menelaus, after all his injuries, loved Helen back in Sparta?
PRINCESS.
That is not the question. A woman born to be a prince's wife and prince's mother, does her work not for the sake of something greater than love, whether much or little.
DIEGO.
For what then?
PRINCESS.
Does a well-bred horse or excellent falcon do its duty to please its master? No; but because such is its nature. Similarly, methinks, a woman bred to be a princess works with her husband, for her husband, not for any reward, but because he and she are of the same breed, and obey the same instincts.
DIEGO.
Ah!----Then happiness, love,--all that a woman craves for?
PRINCESS.
Are accidents. Are they not so in the life of a prince? Love he may snatch; and she, being in woman's fashion not allowed to snatch, may receive as a gift, or not. But received or snatched, it is not either's business; not their nature's true fulfilment.
DIEGO.
You think so, Lady?
PRINCESS.
I am bound to think so. I was born to it and taught it. You know the Duke, my cousin,--well, I am his bride, not being born his sister.
DIEGO.
And you are satisfied? O beautiful Princess, you are of illustrious lineage and mind, and learned. Your father brought you up on Plutarch instead of Amadis; you know many things; but there is one, methinks, no one can know the nature of it until he has it.
PRINCESS.
What is that, pray?
DIEGO.
A heart. Because you have not got one yet, you make your plans without it,--a negligible item in your life.
Princess
I am not a child.
DIEGO.
But not yet a woman.
PRINCESS.
(meditatively)
You think, then----
DIEGO.
I do not think; I know. And you will know, some day. And then----
PRINCESS.
Then I shall suffer. Why, we must all suffer. Say that, having a heart, a heart for husband or child, means certain grief,--well, does not riding, walking down your stairs, mean the chance of broken bones? Does not living mean old age, disease, possible blindness or paralysis, and quite inevitable aches? If, as you say, I must needs grow a heart, and if a heart must needs give agony, why, I shall live through heartbreak as through pain in any other limb.
DIEGO.
Yes,--were your heart a limb like all the rest,--but 'tis the very centre and fountain of all life.
PRINCESS.
You think so? 'Tis, methinks, pushing analogy too far, and metaphor. This necessary organ, diffusing life throughout us, and, as physicians say, removing with its vigorous floods all that has ceased to live, replacing it with new and living tissue,--this great literal heart cannot be the seat of only one small passion.
DIEGO.
Yet I have known more women than one die of that small passion's frustrating.
PRINCESS.
But you have known also, I reckon, many a man in whom life, what he had to live for, was stronger than all love. They say the Duke my cousin's melancholy sickness was due to love which he had outlived.
DIEGO.
They say so, Madam.
PRINCESS.
(thoughtfully)
I think it possible, from what I know of him. He was much with my father when a lad; and I, a child, would listen to their converse, not understanding its items, but seeming to understand the general drift. My father often said my cousin was romantic, favoured overmuch his tender mother, and would suffer greatly, learning to live for valour and for wisdom.
DIEGO.
Think you he has, Madam?
PRINCESS.
If 'tis true that occasion has already come.
DIEGO.
And--if that occasion came, for the first time or for the second, perhaps, after your marriage? What would you do, Madam?
PRINCESS.
I cannot tell as yet. Help him, I trust, when help could come, by the sympathy of a soul's strength and serenity. Stand aside, most likely, waiting to be wanted. Or else----
DIEGO.
Or else, illustrious maiden?
PRINCESS.
Or else----I know not----perhaps, growing a heart, get some use from it.
DIEGO.
Your Highness surely does not mean use it to love with?
PRINCESS.
Why not? It might be one way of help. And if I saw him struggling with grief, seeking to live the life and think the thought fit for his station; why, methinks I could love him. He seems lovable. Only love could have taught fidelity like yours.
DIEGO.
You forget, gracious Princess, that you attributed great power of virtue to a habit of conduct, which is like the nature of high-bred horses, needing no spur. But in truth you are right. I am no high-bred creature. Quite the contrary. Like curs, I love; love, and only love. For curs are known to love their masters.
PRINCESS.
Speak not thus, virtuous Diego. I have indeed talked in magnanimous fashion, and believed, sincerely, that I felt high resolves. But you have acted, lived, and done magnanimously. What you have been and are to the Duke is better schooling for me than all the Lives of Plutarch.
DIEGO.
You could not learn from me, Lady.
PRINCESS.
But I would try, Diego.
DIEGO.
Be not grasping, Madam. The generous coursers whom your father taught you to break and harness have their set of virtues. Those of curs are different. Do not grudge them those. Your noble horses kick them enough, without even seeing their presence. But I feel I am beyond my depth, not being philosophical by nature or schooling. And I had forgotten to give you part of his Highnesses message. Knowing your love of music, and the attention you have given it, the Duke imagined it might divert you, till he was at leisure to pay you homage, to make trial of my poor powers. Will it please you to order the other musicians, Madam?
PRINCESS.
Nay, good Diego, humour me in this. I have studied music, and would fain make trial of accompanying your voice. Have you notes by you?
DIEGO.
Here are some, Madam, left for the use of his Highness's band this evening. Here is the pastoral of Phyllis by Ludovic of the Lute; a hymn in four parts to the Virgin by Orlandus Lassus; a madrigal by the Pope's Master, Signor Pierluigi of Praeneste. Ah! Here is a dramatic scene between Medea and Creusa, rivals in love, by the Florentine Octavio. Have you knowledge of it, Madam?
PRINCESS.
I have sung it with my master for exercise. But, good Diego, find a song for yourself.
DIEGO.
You shall humour me, now, gracious Lady. Think I am your master. I desire to hear your voice. And who knows? In this small matter I may really teach you something.
[The PRINCESS sits to the harpsichord, DIEGO standing beside her on the dais. They sing, the PRINCESS taking the treble, DIEGO the contralto part. The PRINCESS enters first--with a full-toned voice clear and high, singing very carefully. DIEGO follows, singing in a whisper. His voice is a little husky, and here and there broken, but ineffably delicious and penetrating, and, as he sings, becomes, without quitting the whisper, dominating and disquieting. The PRINCESS plays a wrong chord, and breaks off suddenly.]
DIEGO.
(having finished a cadence, rudely)
What is it, Madam?
PRINCESS.
I know not. I have lost my place----I----I feel bewildered. When your voice rose up against mine, Diego, I lost my head. And--I do not know how to express it--when our voices met in that held dissonance, it seemed as if you hurt me----horribly.
DIEGO.
(smiling, with hypocritical apology)
Forgive me, Madam. I sang too loud, perhaps. We theatre singers are apt to strain things. I trust some day to hear you sing alone. You have a lovely voice: more like a boy's than like a maiden's still.
PRINCESS.
And yours----'tis strange that at your age we should reverse the parts,--yours, though deeper than mine, is like a woman's.
DIEGO.
(laughing)
I have grown a heart, Madam; 'tis an organ grows quicker where the breed is mixed and lowly, no nobler limbs retarding its development by theirs.
PRINCESS.
Speak not thus, excellent Diego. Why cause me pain by disrespectful treatment of a person--your own admirable self--whom I respect? You have experience, Diego, and shall teach me many things, for I desire learning.
[The Princess takes his hand in both hers, very kindly and simply. Diego, disengaging his, bows very ceremoniously.]
DIEGO.
Shall I teach you to sing as I do, gracious Madam?
PRINCESS.
(after a moment)
I think not, Diego. _
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