The Duke of Gandia | Page 5

SCENE IV

The Vatican
ALEXANDER and CAESAR
ALEXANDER
Thou hast done this deed.
CAESAR
Thou hast said it.
ALEXANDER
Dost thou think To live, and look upon me?
CAESAR
Some while yet.
ALEXANDER
I would there were a God--that he might hear.
CAESAR
'Tis pity there should be--for thy sake--none.
ALEXANDER
Wilt thou slay me?
CAESAR
Why?
ALEXANDER

Am not I thy sire?
CAESAR
And Christendom's to boot.
ALEXANDER
I pray thee, man, Slay me.
CAESAR
And then myself? Thou art crazed, but I Sane.
ALEXANDER
Art thou very flesh and blood?
CAESAR
They say, Thine.
ALEXANDER
If the heaven stand still and smite thee not, There is no God indeed.
CAESAR
Nor thou nor I Know.
ALEXANDER
I could pray to God that God might be, Were I but mad. Thou sayest I
am mad: thou liest: I do not pray.
CAESAR
Most holiest father, no. Thy brain is not so sick yet. Thou and God
Friends? Man, how long would God have let thee live - Thee?
ALEXANDER
Long enough he hath kept me, to behold His face as fire--if his it
be--and earth As hell--and thee, begotten of my loins, Satan.
CAESAR
The firstfruits of thy fatherhood Were something less than Satan. Man
of God, Vaunt not thyself.
ALEXANDER
I would I had died in the womb.
CAESAR
Thou shalt do better, dying in Peter's chair: Thou shalt die famous.
ALEXANDER
Ay: no screen from that, No shelter, no forgetfulness on earth. We shall
be famed for ever. Hell and night, Cover me!
CAESAR
Hast thou heard that prayers are heard? Or hast thou known earth, for a
man's cry's sake, Cleave, and devour him?

ALEXANDER
I have done this thing. Thou hast not done it: thy deed is none of thine:
Upon my hand, upon my head, the blood Rests.
CAESAR
Wilt thou sleep the worse for this next year?
ALEXANDER
I will not live a seven days' space beyond This.
CAESAR
Thou hast lived thy seven days' space in hell, Father: they say thou hast
fasted even from sleep.
ALEXANDER
Ay.
CAESAR
What they say and what thou sayest I hold False. Though thou hast
wept as woman, howled as wolf, Above our dead, thou art hale and
whole. And now Behoves thee rise again as Christ our God, Vicarious
Christ, and cast as flesh away This grief from off thy godhead. I and
thou, One, will set hand as never God hath set To the empire and the
steerage of the world. Do thou forget but him who is dead, and was
Nought, and bethink thee what a world to wield The eternal God hath
given into thine hands Which daily mould him out of bread, and give
His kneaded flesh to feed on. Thou and I Will make this rent and
ruinous Italy One. Ours it shall be, body and soul, and great Above all
power and glory given of God To them that died to set thee where thou
art - Throned on the dust of Caesar and of Christ, Imperial. Earth shall
quail again, and rise Again the higher because she trembled. Rome So
bade it be: it was, and shall be.
ALEXANDER
Son, Art thou my son?
CAESAR
Whom should thy radiant Rose Have found so fit to ingraff with, and
bring forth So strong a scion as I am?
ALEXANDER
By my faith - Wherein, I know not--by my soul, if that Be--I believe it.
God forgot his doom When he thou hast slain drew breath before thee
CAESAR
God Must needs forget--if God remember. Now This thing thou hast

loved, and I that swept him hence Held never fit for hate of mine, is
dead, Wilt thou be one with me--one God? No less, Lord Christ of
Rome, thou wilt be.
ALEXANDER
Ay? The Dove?
CAESAR
What dove, though lovelier than the swan that lured Leda to love of
God on earth, might match Lucrezia?
ALEXANDER
None. Thou art subtle of soul and strong. I would thou hadst spared
him--couldst have spared him.
CAESAR
Sire, I would so too. Our sire, his sire and mine, I slew not him for lust
of slaying, or hate, Or aught less like thy wiser spirit and mine.
ALEXANDER
Not for the dove's sake?
CAESAR
Not for hate or love. Death was the lot God bade him draw, if God Be
more than what we make him.
ALEXANDER
Bread and wine Could hardly turn so bitter. Canst thou sleep?
CAESAR
Dost thou not? Flesh must sleep to live. Am I No son of thine?
ALEXANDER
I would I saw thine end, And mine: and yet I would not.
CAESAR
Sire, good night. [Exeunt

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE DUKE
OF GANDIA ***
This file should be named dkgr10.txt or dkgr10.zip