The Duke of Gandia

The Duke of Gandia

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(#6 in our series by Algernon Charles Swinburne)
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Title: The Duke of Gandia
Author: Algernon Charles Swinburne
Release Date: July, 2004 [EBook #6024] [Yes, we are more than one
year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on October 20, 2002]
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OF GANDIA ***

Transcribed from the 1908 Chatto and Windus edition by David Price,
email [email protected]

THE DUKE OF GANDIA

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

POPE ALEXANDER VI. FRANCESCO BORGIA, Duke of
Gandia }his sons CAESAR BORGIA, Cardinal of Valencia } DON
MICHELE COREGLIA, called MICHELOTTO, agent for Caesar
Borgia. GIORGIO SCHIAVONE, a Tiber waterman.
TWO ASSASSINS. AN OFFICER of the Papal Household.
VANNOZZA CATANEI, surnamed LA ROSA, concubine to the Pope.
LUCREZIA BORGIA, daughter to Alexander and Vannozza.
SCENE: ROME. TIME: JUNE 14--JULY 22, 1497.

SCENE I

The Vatican Enter CAESAR and VANNOZZA
CAESAR
Now, mother, though thou love my brother more, Am I not more thy
son than he?
VANNOZZA
Not more.
CAESAR
Have I more Spaniard in me--less of thee? Did our Most Holiest father
thrill thy womb With more Italian passion than brought forth Me?
VANNOZZA
Child, thine elder never was as thou - Spake never thus.

CAESAR
I doubt it not. But I, Mother, am not mine elder. He desires And he
enjoys the life God gives him--God, The Pope our father, and thy
sacred self, Mother beloved and hallowed. I desire More.
VANNOZZA
Thou wast ever sleepless as the wind - A child anhungered for thy time
to be Man. See thy purple about thee. Art thou not Cardinal?
CAESAR
Ay; my father's eminence Set so the stamp on mine. I will not die
Cardinal.
VANNOZZA
Caesar, wilt thou cleave my heart? Have I not loved thee?
CAESAR
Ay, fair mother--ay. Thou hast loved my father likewise. Dost thou
love Giulia--the sweet Farnese--called the Fair In all the Roman streets
that call thee Rose? And that bright babe Giovanni, whom our sire, Thy
holy lord and hers, hath stamped at birth As duke of Nepi?
VANNOZZA
When thy sire begat Thee, sinful though he ever was--fierce, fell,
Spaniard--I fear me, Jesus for his sins Bade Satan pass into him.
CAESAR
And fill thee full, Sweet sinless mother. Fear it not. Thou hast Children
more loved of him and thee than me - Our bright Francesco, born to
smile and sway, And her whose face makes pale the sun in heaven,
Whose eyes outlaugh the splendour of the sea, Whose hair has all
noon's wonders in its weft, Whose mouth is God's and Italy's one rose,
Lucrezia.
VANNOZZA
Dost thou love them then? My child, How should not I then love thee?
CAESAR
God alone Knows. Was not God--the God of love, who bade His son be
man because he hated man, And saw him scourged and hanging, and at
last Forgave the sin wherewith he had stamped us, seeing So fair a full
atonement--was not God Bridesman when Christ's crowned vicar took
to bride My mother?
VANNOZZA
Speak not thou to me of God. I have sinned, I have sinned--I would I

had died a nun, Cloistered!
CAESAR
There too my sire had found thee. Priests Make way where warriors
dare not--save when war Sets wide the floodgates of the weirs of hell.
And what hast thou to do with sin? Hath he Whose sin was thine not
given thee there and then God's actual absolution? Mary lived God's
virgin, and God's mother: mine art thou, Who am Christlike even as
thou art virginal. And if thou love me or love me not God knows, And
God, who made me and my sire and thee, May take the charge upon
him. I am I. Somewhat I think to do before my day Pass from me. Did