The Complete Poems of Longfellow
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Hypertext Meanings and Commentaries
from the Encyclopedia of the Self
by Mark Zimmerman
Return to Part 3 of 4

WHARTON.
And Leddra, too, is dead. But from his prison,
The day before his death, he sent these words
Unto the little flock of Christ: "What ever
May come upon the followers of the Light,--
Distress, affliction, famine, nakedness,
Or perils in the city or the sea,
Or persecution, or even death itself,--
I am persuaded that God's armor of Light,
As it is loved and lived in, will preserve you.
Yea, death itself; through which you will find entrance
Into the pleasant pastures of the fold,
Where you shall feed forever as the herds
That roam at large in the low valleys of Achor.
And as the flowing of the ocean fills
Each creek and branch thereof, and then retires,
Leaving behind a sweet and wholesome savor;
So doth the virtue and the life of God
Flow evermore into the hearts of those
Whom He hath made partakers of His nature;
And, when it but withdraws itself a little,
Leaves a sweet savor after it, that many
Can say they are made clean by every word
That He hath spoken to them in their silence."

EDITH (rising and breaking into a kind of chant).
Truly we do but grope here in the dark,
Near the partition-wall of Life and Death,
At every moment dreading or desiring
To lay our hands upon the unseen door!
Let us, then, labor for an inward stillness,--
An inward stillness and an inward healing;
That perfect silence where the lips and heart
Are still, and we no longer entertain
Our own imperfect thoughts and vain opinions,
But God alone speaks in us, and we wait
In singleness of heart, that we may know
His will, and in the silence of our spirits,
That we may do His will, and do that only!

A long pause, interrupted by the sound of a drum approaching;
then shouts in the street, and a loud knocking at the door.

MARSHAL.
Within there! Open the door!

MERRY.
              Will no one answer?

MARSHAL.
In the King's name! Within there!

MERRY.
                      Open the door!

UPSALL (from the window).
It is not barred. Come in. Nothing prevents you.
The poor man's door is ever on the latch.
He needs no bolt nor bar to shut out thieves;
He fears no enemies, and has no friends
Importunate enough to need a key.

Enter JOHN ENDICOTT, the MARSHAL, MERRY, and a crowd. Seeing the
Quakers silent and unmoved, they pause, awe-struck. ENDICOTT
opposite EDITH.

MARSHAL.
In the King's name do I arrest you all!
Away with them to prison. Master Upsall,
You are again discovered harboring here
These ranters and disturbers of the peace.
You know the law.

UPSALL.
             I know it, and am ready
To suffer yet again its penalties.

EDITH (to ENDICOTT).
Why dost thou persecute me, Saul of Tarsus?

ACT II.

SCENE I. -- JOHN ENDICOTT's room. Early morning.

JOHN ENDICOTT.
"Why dost thou persecute me, Saul of Tarsus?"
All night these words were ringing in mine ears!
A sorrowful sweet face; a look that pierced me
With meek reproach; a voice of resignation
That had a life of suffering in its tone;
And that was all! And yet I could not sleep,
Or, when I slept, I dreamed that awful dream!
I stood beneath the elm-tree on the Common,
On which the Quakers have been hanged, and heard
A voice, not hers, that cried amid the darkness,
"This is Aceldama, the field of blood!
I will have mercy, and not sacrifice!"

Opens the window and looks out.

The sun is up already; and my heart
Sickens and sinks within me when I think
How many tragedies will be enacted
Before his setting. As the earth rolls round,
It seems to me a huge Ixion's wheel,
Upon whose whirling spokes we are bound fast,
And must go with it! Ah, how bright the sun
Strikes on the sea and on the masts of vessels,
That are uplifted, in the morning air,
Like crosses of some peaceable crusade!
It makes me long to sail for lands unknown,
No matter whither! Under me, in shadow,
Gloomy and narrow, lies the little town,
Still sleeping, but to wake and toil awhile,
Then sleep again. How dismal looks the prison,
How grim and sombre in the sunless street,--
The prison where she sleeps, or wakes and waits
For what I dare not think of,--death, perhaps!
A word that has been said may he unsaid:
It is but air. But when a deed is done
It cannot be undone, nor can our thoughts
Reach out to all the mischiefs that may follow.
'T is time for morning prayers. I will go down.
My father, though severe, is kind and just;
And when his heart is tender with devotion,--
When from his lips have fallen the words, "Forgive us
As we forgive,"--then will I intercede
For these poor people, and perhaps may save them.
                                     [Exit.

SCENE II. -- Dock Square. On one side, the tavern of the Three
Mariners. In the background, a quaint building with gables; and,
beyond it, wharves and shipping. CAPTAIN KEMPTHORN and others
seated at a table before the door. SAMUEL COLE standing near
them.

KEMPTHORN.
Come, drink about! Remember Parson Melham,
And bless the man who first invented flip!

They drink.

COLE.
Pray, Master Kempthorn, where were you last night?

KEMPTHORN.
On board the Swallow, Simon Kempthorn, master,
Up for Barbadoes, and the Windward Islands.

COLE.
The town was in a tumult.

KEMPTHORN.
                       And for what?

COLE.
Your Quakers were arrested.

KEMPTHORN.
                   How my Quakers?

COLE.
These you brought in your vessel from Barbadoes.
They made an uproar in the Meeting-house
Yesterday, and they're now in prison for it.
I owe you little thanks for bringing them
To the Three Mariners.

KEMPTHORN.
            They have not harmed you.
I tell you, Goodman Cole, that Quaker girl
Is precious as a sea-bream's eye. I tell you
It was a lucky day when first she set
Her little foot upon the Swallow's deck,
Bringing good luck, fair winds, and pleasant weather.

COLE.
I am a law-abiding citizen;
I have a seat in the new Meeting-house,
A cow-right on the Common; and, besides,
Am corporal in the Great Artillery.
I rid me of the vagabonds at once.

KEMPTHORN.
Why should you not have Quakers at your tavern
If you have fiddlers?

COLE.
                 Never! never! never!
If you want fiddling you must go elsewhere,
To the Green Dragon and the Admiral Vernon,
And other such disreputable places.
But the Three Mariners is an orderly house,
Most orderly, quiet, and respectable.
Lord Leigh said he could be as quiet here
As at the Governor's. And have I not
King Charles's Twelve Good Rules, all framed and glazed,
Hanging in my best parlor?

KEMPTHORN.
                       Here's a health
To good King Charles. Will you not drink the King?
Then drink confusion to old Parson Palmer.

COLE.
And who is Parson Palmer? I don't know him.

KEMPTHORN.
He had his cellar underneath his pulpit,
And so preached o'er his liquor, just as you do.

A drum within.

COLE.
Here comes the Marshal.

MERRY (within).
         Make room for the Marshal.

KEMPTHORN.
How pompous and imposing he appears!
His great buff doublet bellying like a mainsail,
And all his streamers fluttering in the wind.
What holds he in his hand?

COLE.
                       A proclamation.

Enter the MARSHAL, with a proclamation; and MERRY, with a
halberd. They are preceded by a drummer, and followed by the
hangman, with an armful of books, and a crowd of people, among
whom are UPSALL and JOHN ENDICOTT. A pile is made of the books.

MERRY.
Silence, the drum! Good citizens, attend
To the new laws enacted by the Court.

MARSHAL (reads).
"Whereas a cursed sect of Heretics
Has lately risen, commonly called Quakers,
Who take upon themselves to be commissioned
Immediately of God, and furthermore
Infallibly assisted by the Spirit
To write and utter blasphemous opinions,
Despising Government and the order of God
In Church and Commonwealth, and speaking evil
Of Dignities, reproaching and reviling
The Magistrates and Ministers, and seeking
To turn the people from their faith, and thus
Gain proselytes to their pernicious ways;--
This Court, considering the premises,
And to prevent like mischief as is wrought
By their means in our land, doth hereby order,
That whatsoever master or commander
Of any ship, bark, pink, or catch shall bring
To any roadstead, harbor, creek, or cove
Within this Jurisdiction any Quakers,
Or other blasphemous Heretics, shall pay
Unto the Treasurer of the Commonwealth
One hundred pounds, and for default thereof
Be put in prison, and continue there
Till the said sum be satisfied and paid."

COLE.
Now, Simon Kempthorn, what say you to that?

KEMPTHORN.
I pray you, Cole, lend me a hundred pounds!

MARSHAL (reads).
"If any one within this Jurisdiction
Shall henceforth entertain, or shall conceal
Quakers or other blasphemous Heretics,
Knowing them so to be, every such person
Shall forfeit to the country forty shillings
For each hour's entertainment or concealment,
And shall be sent to prison, as aforesaid,
Until the forfeiture be wholly paid!"

Murmurs in the crowd.

KEMPTHORN.
Now, Goodman Cole, I think your turn has come!

COLE.
Knowing them so to be!

KEMPTHORN.
                     At forty shillings
The hour, your fine will be some forty pounds!

COLE.
Knowing them so to be! That is the law.

MARSHAL (reads).
"And it is further ordered and enacted,
If any Quaker or Quakers shall presume
To come henceforth into this Jurisdiction,
Every male Quaker for the first offence
Shall have one ear cut off; and shall be kept
At labor in the Workhouse, till such time
As he be sent away at his own charge.
And for the repetition of the offence
Shall have his other ear cut off, and then
Be branded in the palm of his right hand.
And every woman Quaker shall be whipt
Severely in three towns; and every Quaker,
Or he or she, that shall for a third time
Herein again offend, shall have their tongues
Bored through with a hot iron, and shall be
Sentenced to Banishment on pain of Death."

Loud murmurs. The voice of CHRISTISON in the crowd.

O patience of the Lord! How long, how long,
Ere thou avenge the blood of Thine Elect?

MERRY.
Silence, there, silence! Do not break the peace!

MARSHAL (reads).
"Every inhabitant of this Jurisdiction
Who shall defend the horrible opinions
Of Quakers, by denying due respect
To equals and superiors, and withdrawing
From Church Assemblies, and thereby approving
The abusive and destructive practices
Of this accursed sect, in opposition
To all the orthodox received opinions
Of godly men shall be forthwith commit ted
Unto close prison for one month; and then
Refusing to retract and to reform
The opinions as aforesaid, he shall be
Sentenced to Banishment on pain of Death.
By the Court. Edward Rawson, Secretary."
Now, hangman, do your duty. Burn those books.

Loud murmurs in the crowd. The pile of books is lighted.

UPSALL.
I testify against these cruel laws!
Forerunners are they of some judgment on us;
And, in the love and tenderness I bear
Unto this town and people, I beseech you,
O Magistrates, take heed, lest ye be found
As fighters against God!

JOHN ENDICOTT (taking UPSALL'S hand).
Upsall, I thank you
For speaking words such as some younger man,
I, or another, should have said before you.
Such laws as these are cruel and oppressive;
A blot on this fair town, and a disgrace
To any Christian people.

MERRY (aside, listening behind them).
                     Here's sedition!
I never thought that any good would come
Of this young popinjay, with his long hair
And his great boots, fit only for the Russians
Or barbarous Indians, as his father says!

THE VOICE.
Woe to the bloody town! And rightfully
Men call it the Lost Town! The blood of Abel
Cries from the ground, and at the final judgment
The Lord will say, "Cain, Cain! Where is thy brother?"

MERRY.
Silence there in the crowd!

UPSALL (aside).
                      'T is Christison!

THE VOICE.
O foolish people, ye that think to burn
And to consume the truth of God, I tell you
That every flame is a loud tongue of fire
To publish it abroad to all the world
Louder than tongues of men!

KEMPTHORN (springing to his feet).
                Well said, my hearty!
There's a brave fellow! There's a man of pluck!
A man who's not afraid to say his say,
Though a whole town's against him. Rain, rain, rain,
Bones of St. Botolph, and put out this fire!

The drum beats. Exeunt all but MERRY, KEMPTHORN, and COLE.

MERRY.
And now that matter's ended, Goodman Cole,
Fetch me a mug of ale, your strongest ale.

KEMPTHORN (sitting down).
And me another mug of flip; and put
Two gills of brandy in it.
                         [Exit COLE.

MERRY.
                         No; no more.
Not a drop more, I say. You've had enough.

KEMPTHORN.
And who are you, sir?

MERRY.
                  I'm a Tithing-man,
And Merry is my name.

KEMPTHORN.
                  A merry name!
I like it; and I'll drink your merry health
Till all is blue.

MERRY.
            And then you will be clapped
Into the stocks, with the red letter D
Hung round about your neck for drunkenness.
You're a free-drinker,--yes, and a free-thinker!

KEMPTHORN.
And you are Andrew Merry, or Merry Andrew.

MERRY.
My name is Walter Merry, and not Andrew.

KEMPTHORN.
Andrew or Walter, you're a merry fellow;
I'll swear to that.

MERRY.
            No swearing, let me tell you.
The other day one Shorthose had his tongue
Put into a cleft stick for profane swearing.

COLE brings the ale.

KEMPTHORN.
Well, where's my flip? As sure as my name's Kempthorn--

MERRY.
Is your name Kempthorn?

KEMPTHORN.
             That's the name I go by.

MERRY.
What, Captain Simon Kempthorn of the Swallow?

KEMPTHORN.
No other.

MERRY (touching him on the shoulder).
   Then you're wanted. I arrest you
In the King's name.

KEMPTHORN.
            And where's your warrant?

MERRY (unfolding a paper, and reading).
                                Here.
Listen to me. "Hereby you are required,
In the King's name, to apprehend the body
Of Simon Kempthorn, mariner, and him
Safely to bring before me, there to answer
All such objections as are laid to him,
Touching the Quakers."  Signed, John Endicott.

KEMPTHORN.
Has it the Governor's seal?

MERRY.
                        Ay, here it is.

KEMPTHORN.
Death's head and cross-bones. That's a pirate's flag!

MERRY.
Beware how you revile the Magistrates;
You may be whipped for that.

KEMPTHORN.
               Then mum's the word.

Exeunt MERRY and KEMPTHORN.

COLE.
There's mischief brewing! Sure, there's mischief brewing.
I feel like Master Josselyn when he found
The hornet's nest, and thought it some strange fruit,
Until the seeds came out, and then he dropped it.
                                 [Exit.

Scene III. -- A room in the Governor's house, Enter GOVERNOR
ENDICOTT and MERRY.

ENDICOTT.
My son, you say?

MERRY.
           Your Worship's eldest son.

ENDICOTT.
Speaking against the laws?

MERRY.
                    Ay, worshipful sir.

ENDICOTT.
And in the public market-place?

MERRY.
                             I saw him
With my own eyes, heard him with my own ears.

ENDICOTT.
Impossible!

MERRY.
          He stood there in the crowd
With Nicholas Upsall, when the laws were read
To-day against the Quakers, and I heard him
Denounce and vilipend them as unjust,
And cruel, wicked, and abominable.

ENDICOTT.
Ungrateful son! O God! thou layest upon me
A burden heavier than I can bear!
Surely the power of Satan must be great
Upon the earth, if even the elect
Are thus deceived and fall away from grace!

MERRY.
Worshipful sir! I meant no harm--

ENDICOTT.
                           'T is well.
You've done your duty, though you've done it roughly,
And every word you've uttered since you came
Has stabbed me to the heart!

MERRY.
                         I do beseech
Your Worship's pardon!

ENDICOTT.
             He whom I have nurtured
And brought up in the reverence of the Lord!
The child of all my hopes and my affections!
He upon whom I leaned as a sure staff
For my old age! It is God's chastisement
For leaning upon any arm but His!

MERRY.
Your Worship!--

ENDICOTT.
    And this comes from holding parley
With the delusions and deceits of Satan.
At once, forever, must they be crushed out,
Or all the land will reek with heresy!
Pray, have you any children?

MERRY.
                         No, not any.

ENDICOTT.
Thank God for that. He has delivered you
From a great care. Enough; my private griefs
Too long have kept me from the public service.

Exit MERRY, ENDICOTT seats himself at the table and arranges his
papers.

The hour has come; and I am eager now
To sit in judgment on these Heretics.

A knock.

Come in. Who is it? (Not looking up).

JOHN ENDICOTT.
                    It is I.

ENDICOTT (restraining himself).
                            Sit down!

JOHN ENDICOTT (sitting down).
I come to intercede for these poor people
Who are in prison, and await their trial.

ENDICOTT.
It is of them I wished to speak with you.
I have been angry with you, but 't is passed.
For when I hear your footsteps come or go,
See in your features your dead mother's face,
And in your voice detect some tone of hers,
All anger vanishes, and I remember
The days that are no more, and come no more,
When as a child you sat upon my knee,
And prattled of your playthings, and the games
You played among the pear trees in the orchard!

JOHN ENDICOTT.
Oh, let the memory of my noble mother
Plead with you to be mild and merciful!
For mercy more becomes a Magistrate
Than the vindictive wrath which men call justice!

ENDICOTT.
The sin of heresy is a deadly sin.
'T is like the falling of the snow, whose crystals
The traveller plays with, thoughtless of his danger,
Until he sees the air so full of light
That it is dark; and blindly staggering onward,
Lost and bewildered, he sits down to rest;
There falls a pleasant drowsiness upon him,
And what he thinks is sleep, alas! is death.

JOHN ENDICOTT.
And yet who is there that has never doubted?
And doubting and believing, has not said,
"Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief"?

ENDICOTT.
In the same way we trifle with our doubts,
Whose shining shapes are like the stars descending;
Until at last, bewildered and dismayed,
Blinded by that which seemed to give us light,
We sink to sleep, and find that it is death,

Rising.

Death to the soul through all eternity!
Alas that I should see you growing up
To man's estate, and in the admonition
And nurture of the law, to find you now
Pleading for Heretics!

JOHN ENDICOTT (rising).
                    In the sight of God,
Perhaps all men are Heretics. Who dares
To say that he alone has found the truth?
We cannot always feel and think and act
As those who go before us. Had you done so,
You would not now be here.

ENDICOTT.
                 Have you forgotten
The doom of Heretics, and the fate of those
Who aid and comfort them? Have you forgotten
That in the market-place this very day
You trampled on the laws? What right have you,
An inexperienced and untravelled youth,
To sit in judgment here upon the acts
Of older men and wiser than yourself,
Thus stirring up sedition in the streets,
And making me a byword and a jest?

JOHN ENDICOTT.
Words of an inexperienced youth like me
Were powerless if the acts of older men
Were not before them. 'T is these laws themselves
Stir up sedition, not my judgment of them.

ENDICOTT.
Take heed, lest I be called, as Brutus was,
To be the judge of my own son. Begone!
When you are tired of feeding upon husks,
Return again to duty and submission,
But not till then.

JOHN ENDICOTT.
                I hear and I obey!
                                 [Exit.
ENDICOTT.
Oh happy, happy they who have no children!
He's gone! I hear the hall door shut behind him.
It sends a dismal echo through my heart,
As if forever it had closed between us,
And I should look upon his face no more!
Oh, this will drag me down into my grave,--
To that eternal resting-place wherein
Man lieth down, and riseth not again!
Till the heavens be no more, he shall not wake,
Nor be roused from his sleep; for Thou dost change
His countenance and sendest him away!
                                [Exit.

ACT III.

SCENE I. -- The Court of Assistants, ENDICOTT, BELLINGHAM,
ATHERTON, and other magistrates. KEMPTHORN, MERRY, and
constables. Afterwards WHARTON, EDITH, and CHRISTISON.

ENDICOTT.
Call Captain Simon Kempthorn.

MERRY.
                   Simon Kempthorn,
Come to the bar!

KEMPTHORN comes forward.

ENDICOTT.
          You are accused of bringing
Into this Jurisdiction, from Barbadoes,
Some persons of that sort and sect of people
Known by the name of Quakers, and maintaining
Most dangerous and heretical opinions,
Purposely coming here to propagate
Their heresies and errors; bringing with them
And spreading sundry books here, which contain
Their doctrines most corrupt and blasphemous,
And contrary to the truth professed among us.
What say you to this charge?

KEMPTHORN.

                    I do acknowledge,
Among the passengers on board the Swallow
Were certain persons saying Thee and Thou.
They seemed a harmless people, mostways silent,
Particularly when they said their prayers.

ENDICOTT.
Harmless and silent as the pestilence!
You'd better have brought the fever or the plague
Among us in your ship! Therefore, this Court,
For preservation of the Peace and Truth,
Hereby commands you speedily to transport,
Or cause to he transported speedily,
The aforesaid persons hence unto Barbadoes,
From whence they came; you paying all the charges
Of their imprisonment.

KEMPTHORN.
                      Worshipful sir,
No ship e'er prospered that has carried Quakers
Against their will! I knew a vessel once--

ENDICOTT.
And for the more effectual performance
Hereof you are to give security
In bonds amounting to one hundred pounds.
On your refusal, you will be committed
To prison till you do it.

KEMPTHORN.
                         But you see
I cannot do it. The law, sir, of Barbadoes
Forbids the landing Quakers on the island.

ENDICOTT.
Then you will be committed. Who comes next?

MERRY.
There is another charge against the Captain.

ENDICOTT.
What is it?

MERRY.
Profane swearing, please your Worship.
He cursed and swore from Dock Square to the Court-house,

ENDICOTT.
Then let him stand in the pillory for one hour.

[Exit KEMPTHORN with constable.

Who's next?

MERRY.
       The Quakers.

ENDICOTT.
               Call them.

MERRY.
                   Edward Wharton,
Come to the bar!

WHARTON.
              Yea, even to the bench.

ENDICOTT.
Take off your hat.

WHARTON.
                My hat offendeth not.
If it offendeth any, let him take it;
For I shall not resist.

ENDICOTT.
                       Take off his hat.
Let him be fined ten shillings for contempt.

MERRY takes off WHARTON'S hat.

WHARTON.
What evil have I done?

ENDICOTT.
                 Your hair's too long;
And in not putting off your hat to us
You've disobeyed and broken that commandment
Which sayeth "Honor thy father and thy mother."

WHARTON.
John Endicott, thou art become too proud;
And loved him who putteth off the hat,
And honoreth thee by bowing of the body,
And sayeth "Worshipful sir!"  'T is time for thee
To give such follies over, for thou mayest
Be drawing very near unto thy grave.

ENDICOTT.
Now, sirrah, leave your canting. Take the oath.

WHARTON.
Nay, sirrah me no sirrahs!

ENDICOTT.
                      Will you swear?

WHARTON.
Nay, I will not.

ENDICOTT.
         You made a great disturbance
And uproar yesterday in the Meeting-house,
Having your hat on.

WHARTON.
              I made no disturbance;
For peacefully I stood, like other people.
I spake no words; moved against none my hand;
But by the hair they haled me out, and dashed
Their hooks into my face.

ENDICOTT.
                 You, Edward Wharton,
On pain of death, depart this Jurisdiction
Within ten days. Such is your sentence. Go.

WHARTON.
John Endicott, it had been well for thee
If this day's doings thou hadst left undone
But, banish me as far as thou hast power,
Beyond the guard and presence of my God
Thou canst not banish me.

ENDICOTT.
                     Depart the Court;
We have no time to listen to your babble.
Who's next?               [Exit WHARTON.

MERRY.
   This woman, for the same offence.

EDITH comes forward.

ENDICOTT.
What is your name?

EDITH.
          'T is to the world unknown,
But written in the Book of Life.

ENDICOTT.
                            Take heed
It be not written in the Book of Death!
What is it?

EDITH.
          Edith Christison.

ENDICOTT (with eagerness).
                        The daughter
Of Wenlock Christison?

EDITH.
                    I am his daughter.

ENDICOTT.
Your father hath given us trouble many times.
A bold man and a violent, who sets
At naught the authority of our Church and State,
And is in banishment on pain of death.
Where are you living?

EDITH.
                In the Lord.

ENDICOTT.
                        Make answer
Without evasion. Where?

EDITH.
                   My outward being
Is in Barbadoes.

ENDICOTT.
             Then why come you here?

EDITH.
I come upon an errand of the Lord.

ENDICOTT.
'Tis not the business of the Lord you're doing;
It is the Devil's. Will you take the oath?
Give her the Book.

MERRY offers the Book.

EDITH.
               You offer me this Book
To swear on; and it saith," Swear not at all,
Neither by heaven, because it is God's Throne,
Nor by the earth, because it is his footstool!"
I dare not swear.

ENDICOTT.
      You dare not? Yet you Quakers
Deny this book of Holy Writ, the Bible,
To be the Word of God.

EDITH (reverentially).
                  Christ is the Word,
The everlasting oath of God. I dare not.

ENDICOTT.
You own yourself a Quaker,--do you not?

EDITH.
I own that in derision and reproach
I am so called.

ENDICOTT.
          Then you deny the Scripture
To be the rule of life.

EDITH.
                       Yea, I believe
The Inner Light, and not the Written Word,
To be the rule of life.

ENDICOTT.
                       And you deny
That the Lord's Day is holy.

EDITH.
                            Every day
Is the Lords Day. It runs through all our lives,
As through the pages of the Holy Bible,
"Thus saith the Lord."

ENDICOTT.
           You are accused of making
An horrible disturbance, and affrighting
The people in the Meeting-house on Sunday.
What answer make you?

EDITH.
                      I do not deny
That I was present in your Steeple-house
On the First Day; but I made no disturbance.

ENDICOTT.
Why came you there?

EDITH.
      Because the Lord commanded.
His word was in my heart, a burning fire
Shut up within me and consuming me,
And I was very weary with forbearing;
I could not stay.

ENDICOTT.
   'T was not the Lord that sent you;
As an incarnate devil did you come!

EDITH.
On the First Day, when, seated in my chamber,
I heard the bells toll, calling you together,
The sound struck at my life, as once at his,
The holy man, our Founder, when he heard
The far-off bells toll in the Vale of Beavor.
It sounded like a market bell to call
The folk together, that the Priest might set
His wares to sale. And the Lord said within me,
"Thou must go cry aloud against that Idol,
And all the worshippers thereof."  I went
Barefooted, clad in sackcloth, and I stood
And listened at the threshold; and I heard
The praying and the singing and the preaching,
Which were but outward forms, and without power.
Then rose a cry within me, and my heart
Was filled with admonitions and reproofs.
Remembering how the Prophets and Apostles
Denounced the covetous hirelings and diviners,
I entered in, and spake the words the Lord
Commanded me to speak. I could no less.

ENDICOTT.
Are you a Prophetess?

EDITH.
                    Is it not written,
"Upon my handmaidens will I pour out
My spirit, and they shall prophesy"?

ENDICOTT.
                              Enough;
For out of your own mouth are you condemned!
Need we hear further?

THE JUDGES.
                      We are satisfied.

ENDICOTT.
It is sufficient. Edith Christison,
The sentence of the Court is, that you be
Scourged in three towns, with forty stripes save one,
Then banished upon pain of death!

EDITH.
                       Your sentence
Is truly no more terrible to me
Than had you blown a feather into the the air,
And, as it fell upon me, you had said,
Take heed it hurt thee not!"  God's will he done!

WENLOCK CHRISTISON (unseen in the crowd).
Woe to the city of blood! The stone shall cry
Out of the wall; the beam from out the timber
Shall answer it! Woe unto him that buildeth
A town with blood, and stablisheth a city
By his iniquity!

ENDICOTT.
                  Who is it makes
Such outcry here?

CHRISTISON (coming forward).
                I, Wenlock Christison!

ENDICOTT.
Banished on pain of death, why come you here?

CHRISTISON.
I come to warn you that you shed no more
The blood of innocent men! It cries aloud
For vengeance to the Lord!

ENDICOTT.
                     Your life is forfeit
Unto the law; and you shall surely die,
And shall not live.

CHRISTISON.
                    Like unto Eleazer,
Maintaining the excellence of ancient years
And the honor of his gray head, I stand before you;
Like him disdaining all hypocrisy,
Lest, through desire to live a little longer,
I get a stain to my old age and name!

ENDICOTT.
Being in banishment, on pain of death,
You come now in among us in rebellion.

CHRISTISON.
I come not in among you in rebellion,
But in obedience to the Lord of heaven.
Not in contempt to any Magistrate,
But only in the love I bear your souls,
As ye shall know hereafter, when all men
Give an account of deeds done in the body!
God's righteous judgments ye cannot escape.

ONE OF THE JUDGES.
Those who have gone before you said the same,
And yet no judgment of the Lord hath fallen
Upon us.

CHRISTISON.
       He but waiteth till the measure
Of your iniquities shall be filled up,
And ye have run your race. Then will his wrath
Descend upon you to the uttermost!
For thy part, Humphrey Atherton, it hangs
Over thy head already. It shall come
Suddenly, as a thief doth in the night,
And in the hour when least thou thinkest of it!

ENDICOTT.
We have a law, and by that law you die.

CHRISTISON.
I, a free man of England and freeborn,
Appeal unto the laws of mine own nation!

ENDICOTT.
There's no appeal to England from this Court!
What! do you think our statutes are but paper?
Are but dead leaves that rustle in the wind?
Or litter to be trampled under foot?
What say ye, Judges of the Court,--what say ye?
Shall this man suffer death? Speak your opinions.

ONE OF THE JUDGES.
I am a mortal man, and die I must,
And that erelong; and I must then appear
Before the awful judgment-seat of Christ,
To give account of deeds done in the body.
My greatest glory on that day will be,
That I have given my vote against this man.

CHRISTISON.
If, Thomas Danforth, thou hast nothing more
To glory in upon that dreadful day
Than blood of innocent people, then thy glory
Will be turned into shame! The Lord hath said it!

ANOTHER JUDGE.
I cannot give consent, while other men
Who have been banished upon pain of death
Are now in their own houses here among us.
ENDICOTT.
Ye that will not consent, make record of it.
I thank my God that I am not afraid
To give my judgment. Wenlock Christison,
You must be taken back from hence to prison,
Thence to the place of public execution,
There to he hanged till you be dead--dead,--dead.

CHRISTISON.
If ye have power to take my life from me,--
Which I do question,--God hath power to raise
The principle of life in other men,
And send them here among you. There shall be
No peace unto the wicked, saith my God.
Listen, ye Magistrates, for the Lord hath said it!
The day ye put his servitors to death,
That day the Day of your own Visitation,
The Day of Wrath shall pass above your heads,
And ye shall he accursed forevermore!

To EDITH, embracing her.

Cheer up, dear heart! they have not power to harm us.

[Exeunt CHRISTISON and EDITH guarded. The Scene closes.

SCENE II. -- A street. Enter JOHN ENDICOTT and UPSALL.

JOHN ENDICOTT.
Scourged in three towns! and yet the busy people
Go up and down the streets on their affairs
Of business or of pleasure, as if nothing
Had happened to disturb them or their thoughts!
When bloody tragedies like this are acted,
The pulses of a nation should stand still
The town should be in mourning, and the people
Speak only in low whispers to each other.

UPSALL.
I know this people; and that underneath
A cold outside there burns a secret fire
That will find vent and will not be put out,
Till every remnant of these barbarous laws
Shall be to ashes burned, and blown away.

JOHN ENDICOTT.
Scourged in three towns! It is incredible
Such things can be! I feel the blood within me
Fast mounting in rebellion, since in vain
Have I implored compassion of my father!

UPSALL.
You know your father only as a father;
I know him better as a Magistrate.
He is a man both loving and severe;
A tender heart; a will inflexible.
None ever loved him more than I have loved him.
He is an upright man and a just man
In all things save the treatment of the Quakers.

JOHN ENDICOTT.
Yet I have found him cruel and unjust
Even as a father. He has driven me forth
Into the street; has shut his door upon me,
With words of bitterness. I am as homeless
As these poor Quakers are.

UPSALL.
                  Then come with me.
You shall be welcome for your father's sake,
And the old friendship that has been between us.
He will relent erelong. A father's anger
Is like a sword without a handle, piercing
Both ways alike, and wounding him that wields it
No less than him that it is pointed at.
                                [Exeunt.

SCENE III. -- The prison. Night. EDITH reading the Bible by a
lamp.

EDITH.
"Blessed are ye when men shall persecute you,
And shall revile you, and shall say against you
All manner of evil falsely for my sake!
Rejoice, and be exceeding glad, for great
Is your reward in heaven. For so the prophets,
Which were before you, have been persecuted."

Enter JOHN ENDICOTT.

JOHN ENDICOTT.
Edith!

EDITH.
      Who is it that speaketh?

JOHN ENDICOTT.
                       Saul of Tarsus:
As thou didst call me once.

EDITH (coming forward).
                      Yea, I remember.
Thou art the Governor's son.

JOHN ENDICOTT.
                         I am ashamed
Thou shouldst remember me.

EDITH.
                    Why comest thou
Into this dark guest-chamber in the night?
What seekest thou?

JOHN ENDICOTT.
                  Forgiveness!

EDITH.
                           I forgive
All who have injured me. What hast thou done?

JOHN ENDICOTT.
I have betrayed thee, thinking that in this
I did God service. Now, in deep contrition,
I come to rescue thee.

EDITH.
                   From what?

JOHN ENDICOTT.
                         From prison.
EDITH.
I am safe here within these gloomy walls.

JOHN ENDICOTT.
From scourging in the streets, and in three towns!

EDITH.
Remembering who was scourged for me, I shrink not
Nor shudder at the forty stripes save one.

JOHN ENDICOTT.
Perhaps from death itself!

EDITH.
                      I fear not death,
Knowing who died for me.

JOHN ENDICOTT (aside).
                   Surely some divine
Ambassador is speaking through those lips
And looking through those eyes! I cannot answer!

EDITH.
If all these prison doors stood opened wide
I would not cross the threshold,--not one step.
There are invisible bars I cannot break;
There are invisible doors that shut me in,
And keep me ever steadfast to my purpose.

JOHN ENDICOTT.
Thou hast the patience and the faith of Saints!

EDITH.
Thy Priest hath been with me this day to save me,
Not only from the death that comes to all,
But from the second death!

JOHN ENDICOTT.
                        The Pharisee!
My heart revolts against him and his creed!
Alas! the coat that was without a seam
Is rent asunder by contending sects;
Each bears away a portion of the garment,
Blindly believing that he has the whole!

EDITH.
When Death, the Healer, shall have touched our eyes
With moist clay of the grave, then shall we see
The truth as we have never yet beheld it.
But he that overcometh shall not be
Hurt of the second death. Has he forgotten
The many mansions in our father's house?

JOHN ENDICOTT.
There is no pity in his iron heart!
The hands that now bear stamped upon their palms
The burning sign of Heresy, hereafter
Shall be uplifted against such accusers,
And then the imprinted letter and its meaning
Will not be Heresy, but Holiness!

EDITH.
Remember, thou condemnest thine own father!

JOHN ENDICOTT.
I have no father! He has cast me off.
I am as homeless as the wind that moans
And wanders through the streets. Oh, come with me!
Do not delay. Thy God shall be my God,
And where thou goest I will go.

EDITH.
                              I cannot.
Yet will I not deny it, nor conceal it;
From the first moment I beheld thy face
I felt a tenderness in my soul towards thee.
My mind has since been inward to the Lord,
Waiting his word. It has not yet been spoken.

JOHN ENDICOTT.
I cannot wait. Trust me. Oh, come with me!

EDITH.
In the next room, my father, an old man,
Sitteth imprisoned and condemned to death,
Willing to prove his faith by martyrdom;
And thinkest thou his daughter would do less?

JOHN ENDICOTT.
Oh, life is sweet, and death is terrible!

EDITH.
I have too long walked hand in hand with death
To shudder at that pale familiar face.
But leave me now. I wish to be alone.

JOHN ENDICOTT.
Not yet. Oh, let me stay.

EDITH.
                     Urge me no more.

JOHN ENDICOTT.
Alas! good-night. I will not say good-by!

EDITH.
Put this temptation underneath thy feet.
To him that overcometh shall be given
The white stone with the new name written on it,
That no man knows save him that doth receive it,
And I will give thee a new name, and call thee
Paul of Damascus, and not Saul of Tarsus.

[Exit ENDICOTT. EDITH sits down again to read the Bible.

ACT IV.

SCENE I. -- King Street, in front of the town-house. KEMPTHORN
in the pillory. MERRY and a crowd of lookers-on.

KEMPTHORN (sings).
  The world is full of care,
    Much like unto a bubble;
  Women and care, and care and women,
    And women and care and trouble.

Good Master Merry, may I say confound?

MERRY.
Ay, that you may.

KEMPTHORN.
      Well, then, with your permission,
Confound the Pillory!

MERRY.
                That's the very thing
The joiner said who made the Shrewsbury stocks.
He said, Confound the stocks, because they put him
Into his own. He was the first man in them.

KEMPTHORN.
For swearing, was it?

MERRY.
               No, it was for charging;
He charged the town too much; and so the town,
To make things square, set him in his own stocks,
And fined him five pounds sterling,--just enough
To settle his own bill.

KEMPTHORN.
                  And served him right;
But, Master Merry, is it not eight bells?

MERRY.
Not quite.

KEMPTHORN.
   For, do you see? I'm getting tired
Of being perched aloft here in this cro' nest
Like the first mate of a whaler, or a Middy
Mast-headed, looking out for land! Sail ho!
Here comes a heavy-laden merchant-man
With the lee clews eased off and running free
Before the wind. A solid man of Boston.
A comfortable man, with dividends,
And the first salmon, and the first green peas.

A gentleman passes.

He does not even turn his head to look.
He's gone without a word. Here comes another,
A different kind of craft on a taut bow-line,--
Deacon Giles Firmin the apothecary,
A pious and a ponderous citizen,
Looking as rubicund and round and splendid
As the great bottle in his own shop window!

DEACON FIRMIN passes.

And here's my host of the Three Mariners,
My creditor and trusty taverner,
My corporal in the Great Artillery!
He's not a man to pass me without speaking.

COLE looks away and passes.

Don't yaw so; keep your luff, old hypocrite!
Respectable, ah yes, respectable,
You, with your seat in the new Meeting-house,
Your cow-right on the Common! But who's this?
I did not know the Mary Ann was in!
And yet this is my old friend, Captain Goldsmith,
As sure as I stand in the bilboes here.
Why, Ralph, my boy!

Enter RALPH GOLDSMITH.

GOLDSMITH.
                  Why, Simon, is it you?
Set in the bilboes?

KEMPTHORN.
                 Chock-a-block, you see,
And without chafing-gear.

GOLDSMITH.
                   And what's it for?

KEMPTHORN.
Ask that starbowline with the boat-hook there,
That handsome man.

MERRY (bowing).
              For swearing.

KEMPTHORN.

                      In this town
They put sea-captains in the stocks for swearing,
And Quakers for not swearing. So look out.

GOLDSMITH.
I pray you set him free; he meant no harm;
'T is an old habit he picked up afloat.

MERRY.
Well, as your time is out, you may come down,
The law allows you now to go at large
Like Elder Oliver's horse upon the Common.

KEMPTHORN.
Now, hearties, bear a hand! Let go and haul.

KEMPTHORN is set free, and comes forward, shaking GOLDSMITH'S
hand.

KEMPTHORN.
Give me your hand, Ralph. Ah, how good it feels!
The hand of an old friend.

GOLDSMITH.
                God bless you, Simon!

KEMPTHORN.
Now let us make a straight wake for the tavern
Of the Three Mariners, Samuel Cole commander;
Where we can take our ease, and see the shipping,
And talk about old times.

GOLDSMITH.
                      First I must pay
My duty to the Governor, and take him
His letters and despatches. Come with me.

KEMPTHORN.
I'd rather not. I saw him yesterday.

GOLDSMITH.
Then wait for me at the Three Nuns and Comb.

KEMPTHORN.
I thank you. That's too near to the town pump.
I will go with you to the Governor's,
And wait outside there, sailing off and on;
If I am wanted, you can hoist a signal.

MERRY.
Shall I go with you and point out the way?

GOLDSMITH.
Oh no, I thank you. I am not a stranger
Here in your crooked little town.

MERRY.
                         How now, sir?
Do you abuse our town?         [Exit.

GOLDSMITH.
                     Oh, no offence.

KEMPTHORN.
Ralph, I am under bonds for a hundred pound.

GOLDSMITH.
Hard lines. What for?

KEMPTHORN.
            To take some Quakers back
I brought here from Barbadoes in the Swallow.
And how to do it I don't clearly see,
For one of them is banished, and another
Is sentenced to be hanged! What shall I do?

GOLDSMITH.
Just slip your hawser on some cloudy night;
Sheer off, and pay it with the topsail, Simon!
                                   [Exeunt.

SCENE II. -- Street in front of the prison. In the background a
gateway and several flights of steps leading up terraces to the
Governor's house. A pump on one side of the street. JOHN
ENDICOTT, MERRY, UPSALL, and others. A drum beats.

JOHN ENDICOTT.
Oh shame, shame, shame!

MERRY.
             Yes, it would be a shame
But for the damnable sin of Heresy!

JOHN ENDICOTT.
A woman scourged and dragged about our streets!

MERRY.
Well, Roxbury and Dorchester must take
Their share of shame. She will he whipped in each!
Three towns, and Forty Stripes save one; that makes
Thirteen in each.

JOHN ENDICOTT.
      And are we Jews or Christians?
See where she comes, amid a gaping crowd!
And she a child. Oh, pitiful! pitiful!
There's blood upon her clothes, her hands, her feet!

Enter MARSHAL and a drummer. EDITH, stripped to the waist,
followed by the hangman with a scourge, and a noisy crowd.

EDITH.
Here let me rest one moment. I am tired.
Will some one give me water?

MERRY.
                         At his peril.

UPSALL.
Alas! that I should live to see this day!

A WOMAN.
Did I forsake my father and my mother
And come here to New England to see this?

EDITH.
I am athirst. Will no one give me water?

JOHN ENDICOTT (making his way through the crowd with water).
In the Lord's name!

EDITH (drinking.

               In his name I receive it!
Sweet as the water of Samaria's well
This water tastes. I thank thee. Is it thou?
I was afraid thou hadst deserted me.

JOHN ENDICOTT.
Never will I desert thee, nor deny thee.
Be comforted.

MERRY.
              O Master Endicott,
Be careful what you say.

JOHN ENDICOTT.
                   Peace, idle babbler!

MERRY.
You'll rue these words!

JOHN ENDICOTT.
             Art thou not better now?

EDITH.
They've struck me as with roses.

JOHN ENDICOTT.
                   Ah, these wounds!
These bloody garments!

EDITH.
                    It is granted me
To seal my testimony with my blood.

JOHN ENDICOTT.
O blood-red seal of man's vindictive wrath!
O roses in the garden of the Lord!
I, of the household of Iscariot,
I have betrayed in thee my Lord and Master.

WENLOCK CHRISTISON appears above, at the window of the prison,
stretching out his hands through the bars.

CHRISTISON.
Be of good courage, O my child! my child!
Blessed art thou when men shall persecute thee!
Fear not their faces, saith the Lord, fear not,
For I am with thee to deliver thee.

A CITIZEN.
Who is it crying from the prison yonder.

MERRY.
It is old Wenlock Christison.

CHRISTISON.
                             Remember
Him who was scourged, and mocked, and crucified!
I see his messengers attending thee.
Be steadfast, oh, be steadfast to the end!

EDITH (with exultation).
I cannot reach thee with these arms, O father!
But closely in my soul do I embrace thee
And hold thee. In thy dungeon and thy death
I will be with thee, and will comfort thee

MARSHAL.
Come, put an end to this. Let the drum beat.

The drum beats. Exeunt all but JOHN ENDICOTT, UPSALL, and MERRY.

CHRISTISON.
Dear child, farewell! Never shall I behold
Thy face again with these bleared eyes of flesh;
And never wast thou fairer, lovelier, dearer
Than now, when scourged and bleeding, and insulted
For the truth's sake. O pitiless, pitiless town!
The wrath of God hangs over thee; and the day
Is near at hand when thou shalt be abandoned
To desolation and the breeding of nettles.
The bittern and the cormorant shall lodge
Upon thine upper lintels, and their voice
Sing in thy windows. Yea, thus saith the Lord!

JOHN ENDICOTT.
Awake! awake! ye sleepers, ere too late,
And wipe these bloody statutes from your books!
                                  [Exit.

MERRY.
Take heed; the walls have ears!

UPSALL.
                    At last, the heart
Of every honest man must speak or break!

Enter GOVERNOR ENDICOTT with his halberdiers.

ENDICOTT.
What is this stir and tumult in the street?

MERRY.
Worshipful sir, the whipping of a girl,
And her old father howling from the prison.

ENDICOTT (to his halberdiers).
Go on.

CHRISTISON.
       Antiochus! Antiochus!
O thou that slayest the Maccabees! The Lord
Shall smite thee with incurable disease,
And no man shall endure to carry thee!

MERRY.
Peace, old blasphemer!

CHRISTISON.
                    I both feel and see
The presence and the waft of death go forth
Against thee, and already thou dost look
Like one that's dead!

MERRY (pointing).
            And there is your own son,
Worshipful sir, abetting the sedition.

ENDICOTT.
Arrest him. Do not spare him.

MERRY (aside).
                        His own child!
There is some special providence takes care
That none shall be too happy in this world!
His own first-born.

ENDICOTT.
                  O Absalom, my son!

[Exeunt; the Governor with his halberdiers ascending the steps of
his house.

SCENE III. -- The Governor's private room. Papers upon the
table.

ENDICOTT and BELLINGHAM

ENDICOTT.
There is a ship from England has come in,
Bringing despatches and much news from home,
His majesty was at the Abbey crowned;
And when the coronation was complete
There passed a mighty tempest o'er the city,
Portentous with great thunderings and lightnings.

BELLINGHAM.
After his father's, if I well remember,
There was an earthquake, that foreboded evil.

ENDICOTT.
Ten of the Regicides have been put to death!
The bodies of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw
Have been dragged from their graves, and publicly
Hanged in their shrouds at Tyburn.

BELLINGHAM.
                             Horrible!

ENDICOTT.
Thus the old tyranny revives again.
Its arm is long enough to reach us here,
As you will see. For, more insulting still
Than flaunting in our faces dead men's shrouds,
Here is the King's Mandamus, taking from us,
From this day forth, all power to punish Quakers.

BELLINGHAM.
That takes from us all power; we are but puppets,
And can no longer execute our laws.

ENDICOTT.
His Majesty begins with pleasant words,
"Trusty and well-beloved, we greet you well;"
Then with a ruthless hand he strips from me
All that which makes me what I am; as if
From some old general in the field, grown gray
In service, scarred with many wounds,
Just at the hour of victory, he should strip
His badge of office and his well-gained honors,
And thrust him back into the ranks again.

Opens the Mandamus and hands it to BELLINGHAM; and, while he is
reading, ENDICOTT walks up and down the room.

Here, read it for yourself; you see his words
Are pleasant words--considerate--not reproachful--
Nothing could be more gentle--or more royal;
But then the meaning underneath the words,
Mark that. He says all people known as Quakers
Among us, now condemned to suffer death
Or any corporal punishment whatever,
Who are imprisoned, or may be obnoxious
To the like condemnation, shall be sent
Forthwith to England, to be dealt with there
In such wise as shall be agreeable
Unto the English law and their demerits.
Is it not so?

BELLINGHAM (returning the paper).
             Ay, so the paper says.

ENDICOTT.
It means we shall no longer rule the Province;
It means farewell to law and liberty,
Authority, respect for Magistrates,
The peace and welfare of the Commonwealth.
If all the knaves upon this continent
Can make appeal to England, and so thwart
The ends of truth and justice by delay,
Our power is gone forever. We are nothing
But ciphers, valueless save when we follow
Some unit; and our unit is the King!
'T is he that gives us value.

BELLINGHAM.
                             I confess
Such seems to be the meaning of this paper,
But being the King's Mandamus, signed and sealed,
We must obey, or we are in rebellion.

ENDICOTT.
I tell you, Richard Bellingham,--I tell you,
That this is the beginning of a struggle
Of which no mortal can foresee the end.
I shall not live to fight the battle for you,
I am a man disgraced in every way;
This order takes from me my self-respect
And the respect of others. 'T is my doom,
Yes, my death-warrant, but must be obeyed!
Take it, and see that it is executed
So far as this, that all be set at large;
But see that none of them be sent to England
To bear false witness, and to spread reports
That might be prejudicial to ourselves.
                     [Exit BELLINGHAM.

There's a dull pain keeps knocking at my heart,
Dolefully saying, "Set thy house in order,
For thou shalt surely die, and shalt not live!
For me the shadow on the dial-plate
Goeth not back, but on into the dark!
                                  [Exit.

SCENE IV. -- The street. A crowd, reading a placard on the door
of the Meeting-house. NICHOLAS UPSALL among them. Enter John
Norton.

NORTON.
What is this gathering here?

UPSALL.
                   One William Brand,
An old man like ourselves, and weak in body,
Has been so cruelly tortured in his prison,
The people are excited, and they threaten
To tear the prison down.

NORTON.
                 What has been done?

UPSALL.
He has been put in irons, with his neck
And heels tied close together, and so left
From five in the morning until nine at night.

NORTON.
What more was done?

UPSALL.
          He has been kept five days
In prison without food, and cruelly beaten,
So that his limbs were cold, his senses stopped.

NORTON.
What more?

UPSALL.
         And is this not enough?

NORTON.
                        Now hear me.
This William Brand of yours has tried to beat
Our Gospel Ordinances black and blue;
And, if he has been beaten in like manner,
It is but justice, and I will appear
In his behalf that did so. I suppose
That he refused to work.

UPSALL.
                     He was too weak.
How could an old man work, when he was starving?

NORTON.
And what is this placard?

UPSALL.
                      The Magistrates,
To appease the people and prevent a tumult,
Have put up these placards throughout the town,
Declaring that the jailer shall be dealt with
Impartially and sternly by the Court.

NORTON (tearing down the placard).
Down with this weak and cowardly concession,
This flag of truce with Satan and with Sin!
I fling it in his face! I trample it
Under my feet! It is his cunning craft,
The masterpiece of his diplomacy,
To cry and plead for boundless toleration.
But toleration is the first-born child
Of all abominations and deceits.
There is no room in Christ's triumphant army
For tolerationists. And if an Angel
Preach any other gospel unto you
Than that ye have received, God's malediction
Descend upon him! Let him be accursed!
                                  [Exit.

UPSALL.
Now, go thy ways, John Norton, go thy ways,
Thou Orthodox Evangelist, as men call thee!
But even now there cometh out of England,
Like an o'ertaking and accusing conscience,
An outraged man, to call thee to account
For the unrighteous murder of his son!
                                  [Exit.

SCENE V. -- The Wilderness. Enter EDITH.

EDITH.
How beautiful are these autumnal woods!
The wilderness doth blossom like the rose,
And change into a garden of the Lord!
How silent everywhere! Alone and lost
Here in the forest, there comes over me
An inward awfulness. I recall the words
Of the Apostle Paul: "In journeyings often,
Often in perils in the wilderness,
In weariness, in painfulness, in watchings,
In hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness;"
And I forget my weariness and pain,
My watchings, and my hunger and my thirst.
The Lord hath said that He will seek his flock
In cloudy and dark days, and they shall dwell
Securely in the wilderness, and sleep
Safe in the woods! Whichever way I turn,
I come back with my face towards the town.
Dimly I see it, and the sea beyond it.
O cruel town! I know what waits me there,
And yet I must go back; for ever louder
I hear the inward calling of the Spirit,
And must obey the voice. O woods that wear
Your golden crown of martyrdom, blood-stained,
From you I learn a lesson of submission,
And am obedient even unto death,
If God so wills it.            [Exit.

JOHN ENDICOTT (within).
                 Edith! Edith! Edith!

He enters.

It is in vain! I call, she answers not;
I follow, but I find no trace of her!
Blood! blood! The leaves above me and around me
Are red with blood! The pathways of the forest,
The clouds that canopy the setting sun
And even the little river in the meadows
Are stained with it! Where'er I look, I see it!
Away, thou horrible vision! Leave me! leave me!
Alas! you winding stream, that gropes its way
Through mist and shadow, doubling on itself,
At length will find, by the unerring law
Of nature, what it seeks. O soul of man,
Groping through mist and shadow, and recoiling
Back on thyself, are, too, thy devious ways
Subject to law? and when thou seemest to wander
The farthest from thy goal, art thou still drawing
Nearer and nearer to it, till at length
Thou findest, like the river, what thou seekest?
                                   [Exit.

ACT V.

SCENE I. -- Daybreak. Street in front of UPSALL's house. A light
in the window. Enter JOHN ENDICOTT.

JOHN ENDICOTT.
O silent, sombre, and deserted streets,
To me ye 're peopled with a sad procession,
And echo only to the voice of sorrow!
O houses full of peacefulness and sleep,
Far better were it to awake no more
Than wake to look upon such scenes again!
There is a light in Master Upsall's window.
The good man is already risen, for sleep
Deserts the couches of the old.

Knocks at UPSALL's door.

UPSALL (at the window).
                        Who's there?

JOHN ENDICOTT.
Am I so changed you do not know my voice?

UPSALL.
I know you. Have you heard what things have happened?

JOHN ENDICOTT.
I have heard nothing.

UPSALL.
               Stay; I will come down.

JOHN ENDICOTT.
I am afraid some dreadful news awaits me!
I do not dare to ask, yet am impatient
To know the worst. Oh, I am very weary
With waiting and with watching and pursuing!

Enter UPSALL.

UPSALL.
Thank God, you have come back! I've much to tell you.
Where have you been?

JOHN ENDICOTT.
          You know that I was seized,
Fined, and released again. You know that Edith,
After her scourging in three towns, was banished
Into the wilderness, into the land
That is not sown; and there I followed her,
But found her not. Where is she?

UPSALL.
                          She is here.

JOHN ENDICOTT.
Oh, do not speak that word, for it means death!

UPSALL.
No, it means life. She sleeps in yonder chamber.
Listen to me. When news of Leddra's death
Reached England, Edward Burroughs, having boldly
Got access to the presence of the King,
Told him there was a vein of innocent blood
Opened in his dominions here, which threatened
To overrun them all. The King replied.
"But I will stop that vein!" and he forthwith
Sent his Mandamus to our Magistrates,
That they proceed no further in this business.
So all are pardoned, and all set at large.

JOHN ENDICOTT.
Thank God! This is a victory for truth!
Our thoughts are free. They cannot be shut up
In prison wall, nor put to death on scaffolds!

UPSALL.
Come in; the morning air blows sharp and cold
Through the damp streets.

JOHN ENDICOTT.
                It is the dawn of day
That chases the old darkness from our sky,
And tills the land with liberty and light.
                                 [Exeunt.

SCENE II. -- The parlor of the Three Mariners. Enter KEMPTHORN.

KEMPTHORN.
A dull life this,--a dull life anyway!
Ready for sea; the cargo all aboard,
Cleared for Barbadoes, and a fair wind blowing
From nor'-nor'-west; and I, an idle lubber,
Laid neck and heels by that confounded bond!
I said to Ralph, says I, "What's to be done?"
Says he: "Just slip your hawser in the night;
Sheer off, and pay it with the topsail, Simon."
But that won't do; because, you see, the owners
Somehow or other are mixed up with it.
Here are King Charles's Twelve Good Rules, that Cole
Thinks as important as the Rule of Three.

Reads.

"Make no comparisons; make no long meals."
Those are good rules and golden for a landlord
To hang in his best parlor, framed and glazed!
"Maintain no ill opinions; urge no healths."
I drink to the King's, whatever he may say
And, as to ill opinions, that depends.
Now of Ralph Goldsmith I've a good opinion,
And of the bilboes I've an ill opinion;
And both of these opinions I'll maintain
As long as there's a shot left in the locker.

Enter EDWARD BUTTER, with an ear-trumpet.

BUTTER.
Good morning, Captain Kempthorn.

KEMPTHORN.
                        Sir, to you.
You've the advantage of me. I don't know you.
What may I call your name?

BUTTER.
              That's not your name?

KEMPTHORN.
Yes, that's my name. What's yours?

BUTTER.
                 My name is Butter.
I am the treasurer of the Commonwealth.

KEMPTHORN.
Will you be seated?

BUTTER.
      What say? Who's conceited?

KEMPTHORN.

Will you sit down?

BUTTER.
              Oh, thank you.

KEMPTHORN.
                      Spread yourself
Upon this chair, sweet Butter.

BUTTER (sitting down).
                       A fine morning.

KEMPTHORN.
Nothing's the matter with it that I know of.
I have seen better, and I have seen worse.
The wind's nor'west. That's fair for them that sail.

BUTTER.
You need not speak so loud; I understand you.
You sail to-day.

KEMPTHORN.
                 No, I don't sail to-day.
So, be it fair or foul, it matters not.
Say, will you smoke? There's choice tobacco here.

BUTTER.
No, thank you. It's against the law to smoke.

KEMPTHORN.
Then, will you drink? There's good ale at this inn.

BUTTER.
No, thank you. It's against the law to drink.

KEMPTHORN.
Well, almost everything's against the law
In this good town. Give a wide berth to one thing,
You're sure to fetch up soon on something else.

BUTTER.
And so you sail to-day for dear Old England.
I am not one of those who think a sup
Of this New England air is better worth
Than a whole draught of our Old England's ale.

KEMPTHORN.
Nor I. Give me the ale and keep the air.
But, as I said, I do not sail to-day.

BUTTER.
Ah yes; you sail today.

KEMPTHORN.
                    I'm under bonds
To take some Quakers back to the Barbadoes;
And one of them is banished, and another
Is sentenced to be hanged.

BUTTER.
                  No, all are pardoned,
All are set free by order of the Court;
But some of them would fain return to England.
You must not take them. Upon that condition
Your bond is cancelled.

KEMPTHORN.
             Ah, the wind has shifted!
I pray you, do you speak officially?

BUTTER.
I always speak officially. To prove it,
Here is the bond.

Rising and giving a paper.

KEMPTHORN.
          And here's my hand upon it,
And look you, when I say I'll do a thing
The thing is done. Am I now free to go?

BUTTER.
What say?

KEMPTHORN.
     I say, confound the tedious man
With his strange speaking-trumpet! Can I go?

BUTTER.
You're free to go, by order of the Court.
Your servant, sir.
                             [Exit.

KEMPTHORN (shouting from the window).
              Swallow, ahoy! Hallo!
If ever a man was happy to leave Boston,
That man is Simon Kempthorn of the Swallow!

Re-enter BUTTER.

BUTTER.
Pray, did you call?

KEMPTHORN.
      Call! Yes, I hailed the Swallow.

BUTTER.
That's not my name. My name is Edward Butter.
You need not speak so loud.

KEMPTHORN (shaking hands).
                  Good-by! Good-by!

BUTTER.
Your servant, sir.

KEMPTHORN.
        And yours a thousand times!
                           [Exeunt.

SCENE III. -- GOVERNOR ENDICOTT'S private room. An open window.

ENDICOTT seated in an arm-chair. BELLINGHAM standing near.

ENDICOTT.
O lost, O loved! wilt thou return no more?
O loved and lost, and loved the more when lost!
How many men are dragged into their graves
By their rebellious children! I now feel
The agony of a father's breaking heart
In David's cry, "O Absalom, my son!"

BELLINGHAM.
Can you not turn your thoughts a little while
To public matters? There are papers here
That need attention.

ENDICOTT.
                 Trouble me no more!
My business now is with another world,
Ah, Richard Bellingham! I greatly fear
That in my righteous zeal I have been led
To doing many things which, left undone,
My mind would now be easier. Did I dream it,
Or has some person told me, that John Norton
Is dead?

BELLINGHAM.
  You have not dreamed it. He is dead,
And gone to his reward. It was no dream.

ENDICOTT.
Then it was very sudden; for I saw him
Standing where you now stand, not long ago.

BELLINGHAM.
By his own fireside, in the afternoon,
A faintness and a giddiness came o'er him;
And, leaning on the chimney-piece, he cried,  
"The hand of God is on me!" and fell dead.

ENDICOTT.
And did not some one say, or have I dreamed it,
That Humphrey Atherton is dead?

BELLINGHAM.
                               Alas!
He too is gone, and by a death as sudden.
Returning home one evening, at the place
Where usually the Quakers have been scourged,
His horse took fright, and threw him to the ground,
So that his brains were dashed about the street.

ENDICOTT.
I am not superstitions, Bellingham,
And yet I tremble lest it may have been
A judgment on him.

BELLINGHAM.
                 So the people think.
They say his horse saw standing in the way
The ghost of William Leddra, and was frightened.
And furthermore, brave Richard Davenport,
The captain of the Castle, in the storm
Has been struck dead by lightning.

ENDICOTT.
                       Speak no more.
For as I listen to your voice it seems
As if the Seven Thunders uttered their voices,
And the dead bodies lay about the streets
Of the disconsolate city! Bellingham,
I did not put those wretched men to death.
I did but guard the passage with the sword
Pointed towards them, and they rushed upon it!
Yet now I would that I had taken no part
In all that bloody work.

BELLINGHAM.
                         The guilt of it
Be on their heads, not ours.

ENDICOTT.
                       Are all set free?

BELLINGHAM.
All are at large.

ENDICOTT.
        And none have been sent back
To England to malign us with the King?

BELLINGHAM.
The ship that brought them sails this very hour,
But carries no one back.

A distant cannon.

ENDICOTT.
                     What is that gun?

BELLINGHAM.
Her parting signal. Through the window there,
Look, you can see her sails, above the roofs,
Dropping below the Castle, outward bound.

ENDICOTT.
O white, white, white! Would that my soul had wings
As spotless as those shining sails to fly with!
Now lay this cushion straight. I thank you. Hark!
I thought I heard the hall door open and shut!
I thought I beard the footsteps of my boy!

BELLINGHAM.
It was the wind. There's no one in the passage.

ENDICOTT.
O Absalom, my son! I feel the world
Sinking beneath me, sinking, sinking, sinking!
Death knocks! I go to meet him! Welcome, Death!

Rises, and sinks back dead; his head failing aside upon his
shoulder.

BELLINGHAM.
O ghastly sight! Like one who has been hanged!
Endicott! Endicott! He makes no answer!

Raises Endicott's head.

He breathes no more! How bright this signet-ring
Glitters upon his hand, where he has worn it
Through such long years of trouble, as if Death
Had given him this memento of affection,
And whispered in his ear, "Remember me!"
How placid and how quiet is his face,
Now that the struggle and the strife are ended
Only the acrid spirit of the times
Corroded this true steel. Oh, rest in peace,
Courageous heart! Forever rest in peace!

GILES COREY OF THE SALEM FARMS

DRAMATIS PERSONAE.

GILES COREY             Farmer.
JOHN HATHORNE           Magistrate.
COTTON MATHER           Minister of the Gospel.
JONATHAN WALCOT         A youth.
RICHARD GARDNER         Sea-Captain.
JOHN GLOYD              Corey's hired man.
MARTHA                  Wife of Giles Corey.
TITUBA                  An Indian woman.
MARY WALCOT             One of the Afflicted.

The Scene is in Salem in the year 1692.

PROLOGUE.

Delusions of the days that once have been,
Witchcraft and wonders of the world unseen,
Phantoms of air, and necromantic arts
That crushed the weak and awed the stoutest hearts,--
These are our theme to-night; and vaguely here,
Through the dim mists that crowd the atmosphere,
We draw the outlines of weird figures cast
In shadow on the background of the Past,

Who would believe that in the quiet town
Of Salem, and, amid the woods that crown
The neighboring hillsides, and the sunny farms
That fold it safe in their paternal arms,--
Who would believe that in those peaceful streets,
Where the great elms shut out the summer heats,
Where quiet reigns, and breathes through brain and breast
The benediction of unbroken rest,--
Who would believe such deeds could find a place
As these whose tragic history we retrace?

'T was but a village then; the goodman ploughed
His ample acres under sun or cloud;
The goodwife at her doorstep sat and spun,
And gossiped with her neighbors in the sun;
The only men of dignity and state
Were then the Minister and the Magistrate,
Who ruled their little realm with iron rod,
Less in the love than in the fear of God;
And who believed devoutly in the Powers
Of Darkness, working in this world of ours,
In spells of Witchcraft, incantations dread,
And shrouded apparitions of the dead.

Upon this simple folk "with fire and flame,"
Saith the old chronicle, "the Devil came;
Scattering his firebrands and his poisonous darts,
To set on fire of Hell all tongues and hearts!
And 't is no wonder; for, with all his host,
There most he rages where he hateth most,
And is most hated; so on us he brings
All these stupendous and portentous things!"

Something of this our scene to-night will show;
And ye who listen to the Tale of Woe,
Be not too swift in casting the first stone,
Nor think New England bears the guilt alone,
This sudden burst of wickedness and crime
Was but the common madness of the time,
When in all lands, that lie within the sound
Of Sabbath bells, a Witch was burned or drowned.

ACT I.

SCENE I. -- The woods near Salem Village. Enter TITUBA, with a
basket of herbs.

TITUBA.
Here's monk's-hood, that breeds fever in the blood;
And deadly nightshade, that makes men see ghosts;
And henbane, that will shake them with convulsions;
And meadow-saffron and black hellebore,
That rack the nerves, and puff the skin with dropsy;
And bitter-sweet, and briony, and eye-bright,
That cause eruptions, nosebleed, rheumatisms;
I know them, and the places where they hide
In field and meadow; and I know their secrets,
And gather them because they give me power
Over all men and women. Armed with these,
I, Tituba, an Indian and a slave,
Am stronger than the captain with his sword,
Am richer than the merchant with his money,
Am wiser than the scholar with his books,
Mightier than Ministers and Magistrates,
With all the fear and reverence that attend them!
For I can fill their bones with aches and pains,
Can make them cough with asthma, shake with palsy,
Can make their daughters see and talk with ghosts,
Or fall into delirium and convulsions;
I have the Evil Eye, the Evil Hand;
A touch from me and they are weak with pain,
A look from me, and they consume and die.
The death of cattle and the blight of corn,
The shipwreck, the tornado, and the fire,--
These are my doings, and they know it not.
Thus I work vengeance on mine enemies
Who, while they call me slave, are slaves to me!

Exit TITUBA. Enter MATHER, booted and spurred, with a
riding-whip in his hand.

MATHER.
Methinks that I have come by paths unknown
Into the land and atmosphere of Witches;
For, meditating as I journeyed on,
Lo! I have lost my way! If I remember
Rightly, it is Scribonius the learned
That tells the story of a man who, praying
For one that was possessed by Evil Spirits,
Was struck by Evil Spirits in the face;
I, journeying to circumvent the Witches,
Surely by Witches have been led astray.
I am persuaded there are few affairs
In which the Devil doth not interfere.
We cannot undertake a journey even,
But Satan will be there to meddle with it
By hindering or by furthering. He hath led me
Into this thicket, struck me in the face
With branches of the trees, and so entangled
The fetlocks of my horse with vines and brambles,
That I must needs dismount, and search on foot
For the lost pathway leading to the village.

Re-enter TITUBA.

What shape is this? What monstrous apparition,
Exceeding fierce, that none may pass that way?
Tell me, good woman, if you are a woman--

TITUBA.
I am a woman, but I am not good,
I am a Witch!

MATHER.
      Then tell me, Witch and woman,
For you must know the pathways through this wood,
Where lieth Salem Village?

TITUBA.
                         Reverend sir,
The village is near by. I'm going there
With these few herbs. I'll lead you. Follow me.

MATHER.
First say, who are you? I am loath to follow
A stranger in this wilderness, for fear
Of being misled, and left in some morass.
Who are you?

TITUBA.
             I am Tituba the Witch,
Wife of John Indian.

MATHER.
                    You are Tituba?
I know you then. You have renounced the Devil,
And have become a penitent confessor,
The Lord be praised! Go on, I'll follow you.
Wait only till I fetch my horse, that stands
Tethered among the trees, not far from here.

TITUBA.
Let me get up behind you, reverend sir.

MATHER.
The Lord forbid! What would the people think,
If they should see the Reverend Cotton Mather
Ride into Salem with a Witch behind him?
The Lord forbid!

TITUBA.
                 I do not need a horse!
I can ride through the air upon a stick,
Above the tree-tops and above the houses,
And no one see me, no one overtake me.
                          [Exeunt.

SCENE II. -- A room at JUSTICE HATHORNE'S. A clock in the
corner.
Enter HATHORNE and MATHER.

HATHORNE.
You are welcome, reverend sir, thrice welcome here
Beneath my humble roof.

MATHER.
              I thank your Worship.

HATHORNE.
Pray you be seated. You must be fatigued
With your long ride through unfrequented woods.

They sit down.

MATHER.
You know the purport of my visit here,--
To be advised by you, and counsel with you,
And with the Reverend Clergy of the village,
Touching these witchcrafts that so much afflict you;
And see with mine own eyes the wonders told
Of spectres and the shadows of the dead,
That come back from their graves to speak with men.

HATHORNE.
Some men there are, I have known such, who think
That the two worlds--the seen and the unseen,
The world of matter and the world of spirit--
Are like the hemispheres upon our maps,
And touch each other only at a point.
But these two worlds are not divided thus,
Save for the purposes of common speech,
They form one globe, in which the parted s as
All flow together and are intermingled,
While the great continents remain distinct.

MATHER.
I doubt it not. The spiritual world
Lies all about us, and its avenues
Are open to the unseen feet of phantoms
That come and go, and we perceive them not,
Save by their influence, or when at times
A most mysterious Providence permits them
To manifest themselves to mortal eyes.

HATHORNE.
You, who are always welcome here among us,
Are doubly welcome now. We need your wisdom,
Your learning in these things to be our guide.
The Devil hath come down in wrath upon us,
And ravages the land with all his hosts.

MATHER.
The Unclean Spirit said, "My name is Legion!"
Multitudes in the Valley of Destruction!
But when our fervent, well-directed prayers,
Which are the great artillery of Heaven,
Are brought into the field, I see them scattered
And driven like autumn leaves before the wind.

HATHORNE.
You as a Minister of God, can meet them
With spiritual weapons: but, alas!
I, as a Magistrate, must combat them
With weapons from the armory of the flesh.

MATHER.
These wonders of the world invisible,--
These spectral shapes that haunt our habitations,--
The multiplied and manifold afflictions
With which the aged and the dying saints
Have their death prefaced and their age imbittered,--
Are but prophetic trumpets that proclaim
The Second Coming of our Lord on earth.
The evening wolves will be much more abroad,
When we are near the evening of the world.

HATHORNE.
When you shall see, as I have hourly seen,
The sorceries and the witchcrafts that torment us,
See children tortured by invisible spirits,
And wasted and consumed by powers unseen,
You will confess the half has not been told you.

MATHER.
It must be so. The death-pangs of the Devil
Will make him more a Devil than before;
And Nebuchadnezzar's furnace will be heated
Seven times more hot before its putting out.

HATHORNE.
Advise me, reverend sir. I look to you
For counsel and for guidance in this matter.
What further shall we do?

MATHER.
                       Remember this,
That as a sparrow falls not to the ground
Without the will of God, so not a Devil
Can come down from the air without his leave.
We must inquire.

HATHORNE.
           Dear sir, we have inquired;
Sifted the matter thoroughly through and through,
And then resifted it.

MATHER.
                      If God permits
These Evil Spirits from the unseen regions
To visit us with surprising informations,
We must inquire what cause there is for this,
But not receive the testimony borne
By spectres as conclusive proof of guilt
In the accused.

HATHORNE.
                Upon such evidence
We do not rest our case. The ways are many
In which the guilty do betray themselves.

MATHER.
Be careful. Carry the knife with such exactness,
That on one side no innocent blood be shed
By too excessive zeal, and on the other
No shelter given to any work of darkness.

HATHORNE.
For one, I do not fear excess of zeal.
What do we gain by parleying with the Devil?
You reason, but you hesitate to act!
Ah, reverend sir! believe me, in such cases
The only safety is in acting promptly.
'T is not the part of wisdom to delay
In things where not to do is still to do
A deed more fatal than the deed we shrink from.
You are a man of books and meditation,
But I am one who acts.

MATHER.
                 God give us wisdom
In the directing of this thorny business,
And guide us, lest New England should become
Of an unsavory and sulphurous odor
In the opinion of the world abroad!

The clock strikes.

I never hear the striking of a clock
Without a warning and an admonition
That time is on the wing, and we must quicken
Our tardy pace in journeying Heavenward,
As Israel did in journeying Canaan-ward!

They rise.

HATHORNE.
Then let us make all haste; and I will show you
In what disguises and what fearful shapes
The Unclean Spirits haunt this neighborhood,
And you will pardon my excess of zeal.

MATHER.
Ah, poor New England! He who hurricanoed
The house of Job is making now on thee
One last assault, more deadly and more snarled
With unintelligible circumstances
Than any thou hast hitherto encountered!
                            [Exeunt.

SCENE III. -- A room in WALCOT'S House. MARY WALCOT seated in an
arm-chair. TITUBA with a mirror.

MARY.
Tell me another story, Tituba.
A drowsiness is stealing over me
Which is not sleep; for, though I close mine eyes,
I am awake, and in another world.
Dim faces of the dead and of the absent
Come floating up before me,--floating, fading,
And disappearing.

TITUBA.
                 Look into this glass.
What see you?

MARY.
          Nothing but a golden vapor.
Yes, something more. An island, with the sea
Breaking all round it, like a blooming hedge.
What land is this?

TITUBA.
                  It is San Salvador,
Where Tituba was born. What see you now?

MARY.
A man all black and fierce.

TITUBA.
                     That is my father.
He was an Obi man, and taught me magic,--
Taught me the use of herbs and images.
What is he doing?

MARY.
                Holding in his hand
A waxen figure. He is melting it
Slowly before a fire.

TITUBA.
                 And now what see you?

MARY.
A woman lying on a bed of leaves,
Wasted and worn away. Ah, she is dying!

TITUBA.
That is the way the Obi men destroy
The people they dislike! That is the way
Some one is wasting and consuming you.

MARY.
You terrify me, Tituba! Oh, save me
From those who make me pine and waste away!
Who are they? Tell me.

TITUBA.
                 That I do not know,
But you will see them. They will come to you.

MARY.
No, do not let them come! I cannot bear it!
I am too weak to bear it! I am dying.

Fails into a trance.

TITUBA.
Hark! there is some one coming!

Enter HATHORNE, MATHER, and WALCOT.

WALCOT.
                        There she lies,
Wasted and worn by devilish incantations!
O my poor sister!

MATHER.
                  Is she always thus?

WALCOT.
Nay, she is sometimes tortured by convulsions.

MATHER.
Poor child! How thin she is! How wan and wasted!

HATHORNE.
Observe her. She is troubled in her sleep.

MATHER.
Some fearful vision haunts her.

HATHORNE.
                           You now see
With your own eyes, and touch with your own hands,
The mysteries of this Witchcraft.

MATHER.
                       One would need
The hands of Briareus and the eyes of Argus
To see and touch them all.

HATHORNE.
                You now have entered
The realm of ghosts and phantoms,--the vast realm
Of the unknown and the invisible,
Through whose wide-open gates there blows a wind
From the dark valley of the shadow of Death,
That freezes us with horror.

MARY (starting).
                      Take her hence!
Take her away from me. I see her there!
She's coming to torment me!

WALCOT (taking her hand.
                         O my sister!
What frightens you? She neither hears nor sees me.
She's in a trance.

MARY.
              Do you not see her there?

TITUBA.
My child, who is it?

MARY.
                    Ah, I do not know,
I cannot see her face.

TITUBA.
                      How is she clad?

MARY.
She wears a crimson bodice. In her hand
She holds an image, and is pinching it
Between her fingers. Ah, she tortures me!
I see her face now. It is Goodwife Bishop!
Why does she torture me? I never harmed her!
And now she strikes me with an iron rod!
Oh, I am beaten!

MATHER.
                 This is wonderful!.
I can see nothing! Is this apparition
Visibly there, and yet we cannot see it?

HATHORNE.
It is. The spectre is invisible
Unto our grosser senses, but she sees it.

MARY.
Look! look! there is another clad in gray!
She holds a spindle in her hand, and threatens
To stab me with it! It is Goodwife Corey!
Keep her away! Now she is coming at me!
Oh, mercy! mercy!

WALCOT (thrusting with his sword.
                There is nothing there!

MATHER to HATHORNE.
Do you see anything?

HATHORNE.
                 The laws that govern
The spiritual world prevent our seeing
Things palpable and visible to her.
These spectres are to us as if they were not.
Mark her; she wakes.

TITUBA touches her, and she awakes.

MARY.
            Who are these gentlemen?

WALCOT.
They are our friends. Dear Mary, are you better?

MARY.
Weak, very weak.

Taking a spindle from her lap, and holding it up.

         How came this spindle here?

TITUBA.
You wrenched it from the hand of Goodwife Corey
When she rushed at you.

HATHORNE.
             Mark that, reverend sir!

MATHER.
It is most marvellous, most inexplicable!

TITUBA. (picking up a bit of gray cloth from the floor).
And here, too, is a bit of her gray dress,
That the sword cut away.

MATHER.
                      Beholding this,
It were indeed by far more credulous
To be incredulous than to believe.
None but a Sadducee, who doubts of all
Pertaining to the spiritual world,
Could doubt such manifest and damning proofs!

HATHORNE.
Are you convinced?

MATHER to MARY.
           Dear child, be comforted!
Only by prayer and fasting can you drive
These Unclean Spirits from you. An old man
Gives you his blessing. God be with you, Mary!

ACT II

SCENE I. -- GILES COREY's farm. Morning. Enter COREY, with a
horseshoe and a hammer.

COREY.
The Lord hath prospered me. The rising sun
Shines on my Hundred Acres and my woods
As if he loved them. On a morn like this
I can forgive mine enemies, and thank God
For all his goodness unto me and mine.
My orchard groans with russets and pearmains;
My ripening corn shines golden in the sun;
My barns are crammed with hay, my cattle thrive
The birds sing blithely on the trees around me!
And blither than the birds my heart within me.
But Satan still goes up and down the earth;
And to protect this house from his assaults,
And keep the powers of darkness from my door,
This horseshoe will I nail upon the threshold.

Nails down the horseshoe.

There, ye night-hags and witches that torment
The neighborhood, ye shall not enter here!--
What is the matter in the field?--John Gloyd!
The cattle are all running to the woods!--
John Gloyd! Where is the man?

Enter JOHN GLOYD.
                         Look there!
What ails the cattle? Are they all bewitched?
They run like mad.

GLOYD.
           They have been overlooked.

COREY.
The Evil Eye is on them sure enough.
Call all the men. Be quick. Go after them!

Exit GLOYD and enter MARTHA.

MARTHA.
What is amiss?

COREY.
            The cattle are bewitched.
They are broken loose and making for the woods.

MARTHA.
Why will you harbor such delusions, Giles?
Bewitched? Well, then it was John Gloyd bewitched them;
I saw him even now take down the bars
And turn them loose! They're only frolicsome.

COREY.
The rascal!

MARTHA.
           I was standing in the road,
Talking with Goodwife Proctor, and I saw him.

COREY.
With Proctor's wife? And what says Goodwife Proctor?

MARTHA.
Sad things indeed; the saddest you can hear
Of Bridget Bishop. She's cried out upon!

COREY.
Poor soul! I've known her forty year or more.
She was the widow Wasselby, and then
She married Oliver, and Bishop next.
She's had three husbands. I remember well
My games of shovel-board at Bishop's tavern
In the old merry days, and she so gay
With her red paragon bodice and her ribbons!
Ah, Bridget Bishop always was a Witch!

MARTHA.
They'll little help her now,--her caps and ribbons,
And her red paragon bodice and her plumes,
With which she flaunted in the Meeting-house!
When next she goes there, it will he for trial.

COREY.
When will that be?

MARTHA.
                This very day at ten.

COREY.
Then get you ready. We'll go and see it.
Come; you shall ride behind me on the pillion.

MARTHA.
Not I. You know I do not like such things.
I wonder you should. I do not believe
In Witches nor in Witchcraft.

COREY.
                           Well, I do.
There's a strange fascination in it all.
That draws me on and on. I know not why.

MARTHA.
What do we know of spirits good or ill,
Or of their power to help us or to harm us?

COREY.
Surely what's in the Bible must be true.
Did not an Evil Spirit come on Saul?
Did not the Witch of Endor bring the ghost
Of Samuel from his grave? The Bible says so.

MARTHA.
That happened very long ago.

COREY.
                          With God
There is no long ago.

MARTHA.
                     There is with us.

COREY.
And Mary Magdalene had seven devils,
And he who dwelt among the tombs a legion!

MARTHA.
God's power is infinite. I do not doubt it.
If in His providence He once permitted
Such things to be among the Israelites,
It does not follow He permits them now,
And among us who are not Israelites.
But we will not dispute about it, Giles.
Go to the village if you think it best,
And leave me here; I'll go about my work.
                  [Exit into the house.

COREY.
And I will go and saddle the gray mare.
The last word always. That is woman's nature.
If an old man will marry a young wife,
He must make up his mind to many things.
It's putting new cloth into an old garment,
When the strain comes, it is the old gives way.

Goes to the door.

Oh, Martha! I forgot to tell you something.
I've had a letter from a friend of mine,
A certain Richard Gardner of Nantucket,
Master and owner of a whaling-vessel;
He writes that he is coming down to see us.
I hope you'll like him.

MARTHA.
                     I will do my best.

COREY.
That's a good woman. Now I will be gone.
I've not seen Gardner for this twenty year;
But there is something of the sea about him,--
Something so open, generous, large; and strong,
It makes me love him better than a brother.
                                     [Exit.

MARTHA comes to the door.

MARTHA.
Oh these old friends and cronies of my husband,
These captains from Nantucket and the Cape,
That come and turn my house into a tavern
With their carousing! Still, there's something frank
In these seafaring men that makes me like them.
Why, here's a horseshoe nailed upon the doorstep!
Giles has done this to keep away the Witches.
I hope this Richard Gardner will bring him
A gale of good sound common-sense to blow
The fog of these delusions from his brain!

COREY (within).
Ho! Martha! Martha!

Enter COREY.
          Have you seen my saddle?

MARTHA.
I saw it yesterday.

COREY.
                 Where did you see it?

MARTHA.
On a gray mare, that somebody was riding
Along the village road.

COREY.
                Who was it? Tell me.

MARTHA.
Some one who should have stayed at home.

COREY (restraining himself).
                            I see!
Don't vex me, Martha. Tell me where it is.

MARTHA.
I've hidden it away.

COREY.
                     Go fetch it me.

MARTHA.
Go find it.

COREY.
     No. I'll ride down to the village
Bareback; and when the people stare and say,
"Giles Corey, where's your saddle?" I will answer,
"A Witch has stolen it."  How shall you like that!

MARTHA.
I shall not like it.

COREY.
                Then go fetch the saddle.
                         [Exit MARTHA.

If an old man will marry a young wife,
Why then--why then--why then--he must spell Baker!

Enter MARTHA with the saddle, which she throws down.

MARTHA.
There! There's the saddle.

COREY.
                  Take it up.

MARTHA.                            I won't!

COREY.
Then let it lie there. I'll ride to the village,
And say you are a Witch.

MARTHA.
                   No, not that, Giles.

She takes up the saddle.

COREY.
Now come with me, and saddle the gray mare
With your own hands; and you shall see me ride
Along the village road as is becoming
Giles Corey of the Salem Farms, your husband!
                                  [Exeunt.

SCENE II. -- The Green in front of the Meeting-house in Salem
village. People coming and going. Enter GILES COREY.

COREY.
A melancholy end! Who would have thought
That Bridget Bishop e'er would come to this?
Accused, convicted, and condemned to death
For Witchcraft! And so good a woman too!

A FARMER.
Good morrow, neighbor Corey.

COREY (not hearing him).
                        Who is safe?
How do I know but under my own roof
I too may harbor Witches, and some Devil
Be plotting and contriving against me?

FARMER.
He does not hear. Good morrow, neighbor Corey!

COREY
Good morrow.

FARMER.
   Have you seen John Proctor lately?

COREY.
No, I have not.

FARMER.
           Then do not see him, Corey.

COREY.
Why should I not?

FARMER.
       Because he's angry with you.
So keep out of his way. Avoid a quarrel.

COREY.
Why does he seek to fix a quarrel on me?

FARMER.
He says you burned his house.

COREY.
                    I burn his house?
If he says that, John Proctor is a liar!
The night his house was burned I was in bed,
And I can prove it! Why, we are old friends!
He could not say that of me.

FARMER.
                         He did say it.
I heard him say it.

COREY.
                Then he shall unsay it.

FARMER.
He said you did it out of spite to him
For taking part against you in the quarrel
You had with your John Gloyd about his wages.
He says you murdered Goodell; that you trampled
Upon his body till he breathed no more.
And so beware of him; that's my advice!
                                  [Exit.

COREY.
By heaven! this is too much! I'll seek him out,
And make him eat his words, or strangle him.
I'll not be slandered at a time like this,
When every word is made an accusation,
When every whisper kills, and every man
Walks with a halter round his neck!

Enter GLOYD in haste.

                           What now?
GLOYD.
I came to look for you. The cattle--

COREY.
                                  Well,
What of them? Have you found them?

GLOYD.
                   They are dead.
I followed them through the woods, across the meadows;
Then they all leaped into the Ipswich River,
And swam across, but could not climb the bank,
And so were drowned.

COREY.
            You are to blame for this;
For you took down the bars, and let them loose.

GLOYD.
That I deny. They broke the fences down.
You know they were bewitched.

COREY.
                 Ah, my poor cattle!
The Evil Eye was on them; that is true.
Day of disaster! Most unlucky day!
Why did I leave my ploughing and my reaping
To plough and reap this Sodom and Gomorrah?
Oh, I could drown myself for sheer vexation!
                                  [Exit.

GLOYD.
He's going for his cattle. He won't find them.
By this lime they have drifted out to sea.
They will not break his fences any more,
Though they may break his heart. And what care I?
                                  [Exit.

SCENE III. -- COREY's kitchen. A table with supper. MARTHA
knitting.

MARTHA.

He's come at last. I hear him in the passage.
Something has gone amiss with him today;
I know it by his step, and by the sound
The door made as he shut it. He is angry.

Enter COREY with his riding-whip. As he speaks he takes off his
hat and gloves and throws them down violently.

COREY.
I say if Satan ever entered man
He's in John Proctor!

MARTHA.
             Giles, what is the matter?
You frighten me.

COREY.
                 I say if any man
Can have a Devil in him, then that man
Is Proctor,--is John Proctor, and no other!

MARTHA.
Why, what has be been doing?

COREY.
                        Everything!
What do you think I heard there in the village?

MARTHA.
I'm sure I cannot guess. What did you hear?

COREY.
He says I burned his house!

MARTHA.
                      Does he say that?

COREY.
He says I burned his house. I was in bed
And fast asleep that night; and I can prove it.

MARTHA.
If he says that, I think the Father of Lies
Is surely in the man.

COREY.
                    He does say that
And that I did it to wreak vengeance on him
For taking sides against me in the quarrel
I had with that John Gloyd about his wages.
And God knows that I never bore him malice
For that, as I have told him twenty times

MARTHA.
It is John Gloyd has stirred him up to this.
I do not like that Gloyd. I think him crafty,
Not to be trusted, sullen and untruthful.
Come, have your supper. You are tired and hungry.

COREY.
I'm angry, and not hungry.

MARTHA.
                     Do eat something.
You'll be the better for it.

COREY (sitting down).
                       I'm not hungry.

MARTHA.
Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.

COREY.
It has gone down upon it, and will rise
To-morrow, and go down again upon it.
They have trumped up against me the old story
Of causing Goodell's death by trampling on him.

MARTHA.
Oh, that is false. I know it to be false.

COREY.
He has been dead these fourteen years or more.
Why can't they let him rest? Why must they drag him
Out of his grave to give me a bad name?
I did not kill him. In his bed he died,
As most men die, because his hour had come.
I have wronged no man. Why should Proctor say
Such things bout me? I will not forgive him
Till he confesses he has slandered me.
Then, I've more trouble. All my cattle gone.

MARTHA.
They will come back again.

COREY.
                    Not in this world.
Did I not tell you they were overlooked?
They ran down through the woods, into the meadows,
And tried to swim the river, and were drowned.
It is a heavy loss.

MARTHA.
                   I'm sorry for it.

COREY.
All my dear oxen dead. I loved them, Martha,
Next to yourself. I liked to look at them,
And watch the breath come out of their wide nostrils,
And see their patient eyes. Somehow I thought
It gave me strength only to look at them.
And how they strained their necks against the yoke
If I but spoke, or touched them with the goad!
They were my friends; and when Gloyd came and told me
They were all drowned, I could have drowned myself
From sheer vexation; and I said as much
To Gloyd and others.

MARTHA.
              Do not trust John Gloyd
With anything you would not have repeated.

COREY.
As I came through the woods this afternoon,
Impatient at my loss, and much perplexed
With all that I had heard there in the village,
The yellow leaves lit up the trees about me
Like an enchanted palace, and I wished
I knew enough of magic or of Witchcraft
To change them into gold. Then suddenly
A tree shook down some crimson leaves upon me,
Like drops of blood, and in the path before me
Stood Tituba the Indian, the old crone.

MARTHA.
Were you not frightened?

COREY.
                    No, I do not think
I know the meaning of that word. Why frightened?
I am not one of those who think the Lord
Is waiting till He catches them some day
In the back yard alone! What should I fear?
She started from the bushes by the path,
And had a basket full of herbs and roots
For some witch-broth or other,--the old hag.

MARTHA.
She has been here to-day.

COREY.
                With hand outstretched
She said: "Giles Corey, will you sign the Book?"
"Avaunt!" I cried: "Get thee behind me, Satan!"
At which she laughed and left me. But a voice
Was whispering in my ear continually:
"Self-murder is no crime. The life of man
Is his, to keep it or to throw away!"

MARTHA.
'T was a temptation of the Evil One!
Giles, Giles! why will you harbor these dark thoughts?

COREY (rising).
I am too tired to talk. I'll go to bed.

MARTHA.
First tell me something about Bridget Bishop.
How did she look? You saw her? You were there?

COREY.
I'll tell you that to-morrow, not to-night.
I'll go to bed.

MARTHA.
               First let us pray together.

COREY.
I cannot pray to-night.

MARTHA.
                Say the Lord's Prayer,
And that will comfort you.

COREY.
                          I cannot say,
"As we forgive those that have sinned against us,"
When I do not forgive them.

MARTHA (kneeling on the hearth).
                     God forgive you!

COREY.
I will not make believe! I say to-night
There's something thwarts me when I wish to pray,
And thrusts into my mind, instead of prayers,
Hate and revenge, and things that are not prayers.
Something of my old self,--my old, bad life,--
And the old Adam in me rises up,
And will not let me pray. I am afraid
The Devil hinders me. You know I say
Just what I think, and nothing more nor less,
And, when I pray, my heart is in my prayer.
I cannot say one thing and mean another.
If I can't pray, I will not make believe!

[Exit COREY. MARTHA continues kneeling.

ACT III.

SCENE I. -- GILES COREY'S kitchen. Morning. COREY and MARTHA
sitting at the breakfast-table.

COREY (rising).
Well, now I've told you all I saw and heard
Of Bridget Bishop; and I must be gone.

MARTHA.
Don't go into the village, Giles, to-day.
Last night you came back tired and out of humor.

COREY.
Say, angry; say, right angry. I was never
In a more devilish temper in my life.
All things went wrong with me.

MARTHA.
                You were much vexed;
So don't go to the village.

COREY (going).
                            No, I won't.
I won't go near it. We are going to mow
The Ipswich meadows for the aftermath,
The crop of sedge and rowens.

MARTHA.
                       Stay a moment,
I want to tell you what I dreamed last night.
Do you believe in dreams?

COREY.
                     Why, yes and no.
When they come true, then I believe in them
When they come false, I don't believe in them.
But let me hear. What did you dream about?

MARTHA.
I dreamed that you and I were both in prison;
That we had fetters on our hands and feet;
That we were taken before the Magistrates,
And tried for Witchcraft, and condemned to death!
I wished to pray; they would not let me pray;
You tried to comfort me, and they forbade it.
But the most dreadful thing in all my dream
Was that they made you testify against me!
And then there came a kind of mist between us;
I could not see you; and I woke in terror.
I never was more thankful in my life
Than when I found you sleeping at my side!

COREY (with tenderness).
It was our talk last night that made you dream.
I'm sorry for it. I'll control myself
Another time, and keep my temper down!
I do not like such dreams.--Remember, Martha,
I'm going to mow the Ipswich River meadows;
If Gardner comes, you'll tell him where to find me.
                                    [Exit.

MARTHA.
So this delusion grows from bad to worse
First, a forsaken and forlorn old woman,
Ragged and wretched, and without a friend;
Then something higher. Now it's Bridget Bishop;
God only knows whose turn it will be next!
The Magistrates are blind, the people mad!
If they would only seize the Afflicted Children,
And put them in the Workhouse, where they should be,
There'd be an end of all this wickedness.
                                   [Exit.

SCENE II. -- A street in Salem Village. Enter MATHER and
HATHORNE.

MATHER.
Yet one thing troubles me.

HATHORNE.
                      And what is that?

MATHER.
May not the Devil take the outward shape
Of innocent persons? Are we not in danger,
Perhaps, of punishing some who are not guilty?

HATHORNE.
As I have said, we do not trust alone
To spectral evidence.

MATHER.
                      And then again,
If any shall be put to death for Witchcraft,
We do but kill the body, not the soul.
The Unclean Spirits that possessed them once
Live still, to enter into other bodies.
What have we gained? Surely, there's nothing gained.

HATHORNE.
Doth not the Scripture say, "Thou shalt not suffer
A Witch to live"?

MATHER.
              The Scripture sayeth it,
But speaketh to the Jews; and we are Christians.
What say the laws of England?

HATHORNE.
                They make Witchcraft
Felony without the benefit of Clergy.
Witches are burned in England. You have read--
For you read all things, not a book escapes you--
The famous Demonology of King James?

MATHER.
A curious volume. I remember also
The plot of the Two Hundred, with one Fian,
The Registrar of the Devil, at their head,
To drown his Majesty on his return
From Denmark; how they sailed in sieves or riddles
Unto North Berwick Kirk in Lothian,
And, landing there, danced hand in hand, and sang,
"Goodwife, go ye before! good wife, go ye!
If ye'll not go before, goodwife, let me!"
While Geilis Duncan played the Witches' Reel
Upon a jews-harp.

HATHORNE.
             Then you know full well
The English law, and that in England Witches,
When lawfully convicted and attainted,
Are put to death.

MATHER.
             When lawfully convicted;
That is the point.

HATHORNE.
                You heard the evidence
Produced before us yesterday at the trial
Of Bridget Bishop.

MATHER.
                  One of the Afflicted,
I know, bore witness to the apparition
Of ghosts unto the spectre of this Bishop,
Saying, "You murdered us!" of the truth whereof
There was in matter of fact too much Suspicion.

HATHORNE.
And when she cast her eyes on the Afflicted,
They were struck down; and this in such a manner
There could be no collusion in the business.
And when the accused but laid her hand upon them,
As they lay in their swoons, they straight revived,
Although they stirred not when the others touched them.

MATHER.
What most convinced me of the woman's guilt
Was finding hidden in her cellar wall
Those poppets made of rags, with headless pins
Stuck into them point outwards, and whereof
She could not give a reasonable account.

HATHORNE.
When you shall read the testimony given
Before the Court in all the other cases,
I am persuaded you will find the proof
No less conclusive than it was in this.
Come, then, with me, and I will tax your patience
With reading of the documents so far
As may convince you that these sorcerers
Are lawfully convicted and attainted.
Like doubting Thomas, you shall lay your hand
Upon these wounds, and you will doubt no more.
                             {Exeunt.

SCENE III. -- A room in COREY's house. MARTHA and two Deacons of
the church.

MARTHA.
Be seated. I am glad to see you here.
I know what you are come for. You are come
To question me, and learn from my own lips
If I have any dealings with the Devil;
In short, if I'm a Witch.

DEACON (sitting down).
                   Such is our purpose.
How could you know beforehand why we came?

MARTHA.
'T was only a surmise.

DEACON.
                  We came to ask you,
You being with us in church covenant,
What part you have, if any, in these matters.

MARTHA.
And I make answer, No part whatsoever.
I am a farmer's wife, a working woman;
You see my spinning-wheel, you see my loom,
You know the duties of a farmer's wife,
And are not ignorant that my life among you
Has been without reproach until this day.
Is it not true?

DEACON.
         So much we're bound to own,
And say it frankly, and without reserve.

MARTHA.
I've heard the idle tales that are abroad;
I've heard it whispered that I am a Witch;
I cannot help it. I do not believe
In any Witchcraft. It is a delusion.

DEACON.
How can you say that it is a delusion,
When all our learned and good men believe it,--
Our Ministers and worshipful Magistrates?

MARTHA.
Their eyes are blinded and see not the truth.
Perhaps one day they will be open to it.

DEACON.
You answer boldly. The Afflicted Children
Say you appeared to them.

MARTHA.
                     And did they say
What clothes I came in?

DEACON.
               No, they could not tell.
They said that you foresaw our visit here,
And blinded them, so that they could not see
The clothes you wore.

MARTHA.
             The cunning, crafty girls!
I say to you, in all sincerity,
I never have appeared to anyone
In my own person. If the Devil takes
My shape to hurt these children, or afflict them,
I am not guilty of it. And I say
It's all a mere delusion of the senses.

DEACON.
I greatly fear that you will find too late
It is not so.

MARTHA (rising).
             They do accuse me falsely.
It is delusion, or it is deceit.
There is a story in the ancient Scriptures
Which I much wonder comes not to your minds.
Let me repeat it to you.

DEACON.
                        We will hear it.

MARTHA.
It came to pass that Naboth had a vineyard
Hard by the palace of the King called Ahab.
And Ahab, King of Israel, spake to Naboth,
And said to him, Give unto me thy vineyard,
That I may have it for a garden of herbs,
And I will give a better vineyard for it,
Or, if it seemeth good to thee, its worth
In money. And then Naboth said to Ahab,
The Lord forbid it me that I should give
The inheritance of my fathers unto thee.
And Ahab came into his house displeased
And heavy at the words which Naboth spake,
And laid him down upon his bed, and turned
His face away; and he would eat no bread.
And Jezebel, the wife of Ahab, came
And said to him, Why is thy spirit sad?
And he said unto her, Because I spake
To Naboth, to the Jezreelite, and said,
Give me thy vineyard; and he answered, saying,
I will not give my vineyard unto thee.
And Jezebel, the wife of Ahab, said,
Dost thou not rule the realm of Israel?
Arise, eat bread, and let thy heart be merry;
I will give Naboth's vineyard unto thee.
So she wrote letters in King Ahab's name,
And sealed them with his seal, and sent the letters
Unto the elders that were in his city
Dwelling with Naboth, and unto the nobles;
And in the letters wrote, Proclaim a fast;
And set this Naboth high among the people,
And set two men, the sons of Belial,
Before him, to bear witness and to say,
Thou didst blaspheme against God and the King;
And carry him out and stone him, that he die!
And the elders and the nobles in the city
Did even as Jezebel, the wife of Ahab,
Had sent to them and written in the letters.

And then it came to pass, when Ahab heard
Naboth was dead, that Ahab rose to go
Down unto Naboth's vineyard, and to take
Possession of it. And the word of God
Came to Elijah, saying to him, Arise,
Go down to meet the King of Israel
In Naboth's vineyard, whither he hath gone
To take possession. Thou shalt speak to him,
Saying, Thus saith the Lord! What! hast thou killed
And also taken possession? In the place
Wherein the dogs have licked the blood of Naboth
Shall the dogs lick thy blood,--ay, even thine!

Both of the Deacons start from their seats.

And Ahab then, the King of Israel,
Said, Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?
Elijah the Prophet answered, I have found thee!
So will it be with those who have stirred up
The Sons of Belial here to bear false witness
And swear away the lives of innocent people;
Their enemy will find them out at last,
The Prophet's voice will thunder, I have found thee!
                                [Exeunt.

SCENE IV. -- Meadows on Ipswich River, COREY and his men mowing;
COREY in advance.

COREY.
Well done, my men. You see, I lead the field!
I'm an old man, but I can swing a scythe
Better than most of yon, though you be younger.

Hangs his scythe upon a tree.

GLOYD (aside to the others).
How strong he is! It's supernatural.
No man so old as he is has such strength.
The Devil helps him!

COREY (wiping his forehead).
                 Now we'll rest awhile,
And take our nooning. What's the matter with you?
You are not angry with me,--are you, Gloyd?
Come, come, we will not quarrel. Let's be friends.
It's an old story, that the Raven said,
"Read the Third of Colossians and fifteenth."

GLOYD.
You're handier at the scythe, but I can beat you
At wrestling.

COREY.
      Well, perhaps so. I don't know.
I never wrestled with you. Why, you're vexed!
Come, come, don't bear a grudge.

GLOYD.
                  You are afraid.

COREY.
What should I bc afraid of? All bear witness
The challenge comes from him. Now, then, my man.

They wrestle, and GLOYD is thrown.

ONE OF THE MEN.
That's a fair fall.

ANOTHER.
              'T was nothing but a foil!

OTHERS.
You've hurt him!

COREY (helping GLOYD rise).
        No; this meadow-land is soft.
You're not hurt,--are you, Gloyd?

GLOYD (rising).
                No, not much hurt.

COREY.
Well, then, shake hands; and there's an end of it.
How do you like that Cornish hug, my lad?
And now we'll see what's in our basket here.

GLOYD (aside).
The Devil and all his imps are in that man!
The clutch of his ten fingers burns like fire!

COREY (reverentially taking off his hat).
God bless the food He hath provided for us,
And make us thankful for it, for Christ's sake!

He lifts up a keg of cider, and drinks from it.

GLOYD.
Do you see that? Don't tell me it's not Witchcraft
Two of us could not lift that cask as he does!

COREY puts down the keg, and opens a basket. A voice is heard
calling.

VOICE.
Ho! Corey, Corey!

COREY.
              What is that? I surely
Heard some one calling me by name!

VOICE.
                         Giles Corey!

Enter a boy, running, and out of breath.

BOY.
Is Master Corey here?

COREY.
                      Yes, here I am.
BOY.
O Master Corey!

COREY.
               Well?

BOY.
                 Your wife--your wife--

COREY.
What's happened to my wife?

BOY.
                 She's sent to prison!

COREY.
The dream! the dream! O God, be merciful!

BOY.
She sent me here to tell you.

COREY (putting on his jacket).
                   Where's my horse?
Don't stand there staring, fellows.
Where's my horse?
                 [Exit COREY.

GLOYD.
Under the trees there. Run, old man, run, run!
You've got some one to wrestle with you now
Who'll trip your heels up, with your Cornish hug.
If there's a Devil, he has got you now.
Ah, there he goes! His horse is snorting fire!

ONE OF THE MEN.
John Gloyd, don't talk so! It's a shame to talk so!
He's a good master, though you quarrel with him.

GLOYD.
If hard work and low wages make good masters,
Then he is one. But I think otherwise.
Come, let us have our dinner and be merry,
And talk about the old man and the Witches.
I know some stories that will make you laugh.

They sit down on the grass, and eat.

Now there are Goody Cloyse and Goody Good,
Who have not got a decent tooth between them,
And yet these children--the Afflicted Children--
Say that they bite them, and show marks of teeth
Upon their arms!

ONE OF THE MEN.
      That makes the wonder greater.
That's Witchcraft. Why, if they had teeth like yours,
'T would be no wonder if the girls were bitten!

GLOYD.
And then those ghosts that come out of their graves
And cry, "You murdered us! you murdered us!"

ONE OF THE MEN.
And all those Apparitions that stick pins
Into the flesh of the Afflicted Children!

GLOYD.
Oh those Afflicted Children! They know well
Where the pins come from. I can tell you that.
And there's old Corey, he has got a horseshoe
Nailed on his doorstep to keep off the Witches,
And all the same his wife has gone to prison.

ONE OF THE MEN.
Oh, she's no Witch. I'll swear that Goodwife Corey
Never did harm to any living creature.
She's a good woman, if there ever was one.

GLOYD.
Well, we shall see. As for that Bridget Bishop,
She has been tried before; some years ago
A negro testified he saw her shape
Sitting upon the rafters in a barn,
And holding in its hand an egg; and while
He went to fetch his pitchfork, she had vanished.
And now be quiet, will you? I am tired,
And want to sleep here on the grass a little.

They stretch themselves on the grass.

ONE OF THE MEN.
There may be Witches riding through the air
Over our heads on broomsticks at this moment,
Bound for some Satan's Sabbath in the woods
To be baptized.

GLOYD.
   I wish they'd take you with them,
And hold you under water, head and ears,
Till you were drowned; and that would stop your talking,
If nothing else will. Let me sleep, I say.

ACT IV

SCENE I. -- The Green in front of the village Meeting-house. An
excited crowd gathering. Enter JOHN GLOYD.

A FARMER.
Who will be tried to-day?

A SECOND.
                       I do not know.
Here is John Gloyd. Ask him; he knows.

FARMER.
                       John Gloyd,
Whose turn is it to-day?

GLOYD.
                 It's Goodwife Corey's.

FARMER.
Giles Corey's wife?

GLOYD.
           The same. She is not mine.
It will go hard with her with all her praying.
The hypocrite! She's always on her knees;
But she prays to the Devil when she prays.
Let us go in.

A trumpet blows.

FARMER.
            Here come the Magistrates.

SECOND FARMER.
Who's the tall man in front?

GLOYD.
                 Oh, that is Hathorne,
A Justice of the Court, and a Quarter-master
In the Three County Troop. He'll sift the matter.
That's Corwin with him; and the man in black
Is Cotton Mather, Minister of Boston.

Enter HATHORNE and other Magistrates on horseback, followed by
the Sheriff, constables, and attendants on foot. The Magistrates
dismount, and enter the Meeting-house, with the rest.

FARMER.

The Meeting-house is full. I never saw
So great a crowd before.

GLOYD.
                    No matter. Come.
We shall find room enough by elbowing
Our way among them. Put your shoulder to it.

FARMER.
There were not half so many at the trial
Of Goodwife Bishop.

GLOYD.
                  Keep close after me.
I'll find a place for you. They'll want me there.
I am a friend of Corey's, as you know,
And he can't do without me just at present.
                          [Exeunt.

SCENE II. -- Interior of the Meeting-house. MATHER and the
Magistrates seated in front of the pulpit. Before them a raised
platform. MARTHA in chains. COREY near her. MARY WALCOT in a
chair. A crowd of spectators, among them GLOYD. Confusion and
murmurs during the scene.

HATHORNE.
Call Martha Corey.

MARTHA.
             I am here.

HATHORNE.
                        Come forward.

She ascends the platform.

The Jurors of our Sovereign Lord and Lady
The King and Queen, here present, do accuse you
Of having on the tenth of June last past,
And divers other times before and after,
Wickedly used and practised certain arts
Called Witchcrafts, Sorceries, and Incantations,
Against one Mary Walcot, single woman,
Of Salem Village; by which wicked arts
The aforesaid Mary Walcot was tormented,
Tortured, afflicted, pined, consumed, and wasted,
Against the peace of our Sovereign Lord and Lady
The King and Queen, as well as of the Statute
Made and provided in that case. What say you?

MARTHA.
Before I answer, give me leave to pray.

HATHORNE.
We have not sent for you, nor are we here,
To hear you pray, but to examine you
In whatsoever is alleged against you.
Why do you hurt this person?

MARTHA.
                            I do not.
I am not guilty of the charge against me.

MARY.
Avoid, she-devil! You may torment me now!
Avoid, avoid, Witch!

MARTHA.
                    I am innocent.
I never had to do with any Witchcraft
Since I was born. I am a gospel woman.

MARY.
You are a gospel Witch!

MARTHA (clasping her hands).
                      Ah me! ah me!
Oh, give me leave to pray!

MARY (stretching out her hands).
                     She hurts me now.
See, she has pinched my hands!

HATHORNE.
              Who made these marks
Upon her hands?

MARTHA.
              I do not know. I stand
Apart from her. I did not touch her hands.

HATHORNE.
Who hurt her then?

MARTHA.
             I know not.

HATHORNE.
                       Do you think
She is bewitched?

MARTHA.
              Indeed I do not think so.
I am no Witch, and have no faith in Witches.

HATHORNE.
Then answer me: When certain persons came
To see you yesterday, how did you know
Beforehand why they came?

MARTHA.
                    I had had speech;
The children said I hurt them, and I thought
These people came to question me about it.

HATHORNE.
How did you know the children had been told
To note the clothes you wore?

MARTHA.
                    My husband told me
What others said about it.

HATHORNE.
                     Goodman Corey,
Say, did you tell her?

COREY.
                I must speak the truth;
I did not tell her. It was some one else.

HATHORNE.
Did you not say your husband told you so?
How dare you tell a lie in this assembly?
Who told you of the clothes? Confess the truth.

MARTHA bites her lips, and is silent.

You bite your lips, but do not answer me!

MARY.
Ah, she is biting me! Avoid, avoid!

HATHORNE.
You said your husband told you.

MARTHA.
                      Yes, he told me
The children said I troubled them.

HATHORNE.
                         Then tell me,
Why do you trouble them?

MARTHA.
                    I have denied it.

MARY.
She threatened me; stabbed at me with her spindle;
And, when my brother thrust her with his sword,
He tore her gown, and cut a piece away.
Here are they both, the spindle and the cloth.

Shows them.

HATHORNE.
And there are persons here who know the truth
Of what has now been said. What answer make you?

MARTHA.
I make no answer. Give me leave to pray.

HATHORNE.
Whom would you pray to?

MARTHA.
            To my God and Father.

HATHORNE.
Who is your God and Father?

MARTHA.
                     The Almighty!

HATHORNE.
Doth he you pray to say that he is God?
It is the Prince of Darkness, and not God.

MARY.
There is a dark shape whispering in her ear.

HATHORNE.
What does it say to you?

MARTHA.
                       I see no shape.

HATHORNE.
Did you not hear it whisper?

MARTHA.
                      I heard nothing.

MARY.
What torture! Ah, what agony I suffer!

Falls into a swoon.

HATHORNE.
You see this woman cannot stand before you.
If you would look for mercy, you must look
In God's way, by confession of your guilt.
Why does your spectre haunt and hurt this person?

MARTHA.
I do not know. He who appeared of old
In Samuel's shape, a saint and glorified,
May come in whatsoever shape he chooses.
I cannot help it. I am sick at heart!

COREY.
O Martha, Martha! let me hold your hand.

HATHORNE.
No; stand aside, old man.

MARY (starting up).
                Look there! Look there!
I see a little bird, a yellow bird
Perched on her finger; and it pecks at me.
Ah, it will tear mine eyes out!

MARTHA.
                           I see nothing.

HATHORNE.
'T is the Familiar Spirit that attends her.

MARY.
Now it has flown away. It sits up there
Upon the rafters. It is gone; is vanished.

MARTHA.
Giles, wipe these tears of anger from mine eyes.
Wipe the sweat from my forehead. I am faint.

She leans against the railing.

MARY.
Oh, she is crushing me with all her weight!

HATHORNE.
Did you not carry once the Devil's Book
To this young woman?

MARTHA.
               Never.

HATHORNE.
                 Have you signed it,
Or touched it?

MARTHA.
              No; I never saw it.

HATHORNE.
Did you not scourge her with an iron rod?

MARTHA.
No, I did not. If any Evil Spirit
Has taken my shape to do these evil deeds,
I cannot help it. I am innocent.

HATHORNE.
Did you not say the Magistrates were blind?
That you would open their eyes?

MARTHA (with a scornful laugh).
                      Yes, I said that;
If you call me a sorceress, you are blind!
If you accuse the innocent, you are blind!
Can the innocent be guilty?

HATHORNE.
                           Did you not
On one occasion hide your husband's saddle
To hinder him from coming to the sessions?

MARTHA.
I thought it was a folly in a farmer
To waste his time pursuing such illusions.

HATHORNE.
What was the bird that this young woman saw
Just now upon your hand?

MARTHA.
                      I know no bird.

HATHORNE.
Have you not dealt with a Familiar Spirit?

MARTHA.
No, never, never!

HATHORNE.
               What then was the Book
You showed to this young woman, and besought her
To write in it?

MARTHA.
          Where should I have a book?
I showed her none, nor have none.

MARY.
                     The next Sabbath
Is the Communion Day, but Martha Corey
Will not be there!

MARTHA.
           Ah, you are all against me.
What can I do or say?

HATHORNE.
                    You can confess.

MARTHA.
No, I cannot, for I am innocent.

HATHORNE.
We have the proof of many witnesses
That you are guilty.

MARTHA.
             Give me leave to speak.
Will you condemn me on such evidence,--
You who have known me for so many years?
Will you condemn me in this house of God,
Where I so long have worshipped with you all?
Where I have eaten the bread and drunk the wine
So many times at our Lord's Table with you?
Bear witness, you that hear me; you all know
That I have led a blameless life among you,
That never any whisper of suspicion
Was breathed against me till this accusation.
And shall this count for nothing? Will you take
My life away from me, because this girl,
Who is distraught, and not in her right mind,
Accuses me of things I blush to name?

HATHORNE.
What! is it not enough? Would you hear more?
Giles Corey!

COREY.
             I am here.

HATHORNE.
                  Come forward, then.

COREY ascends the platform.

Is it not true, that on a certain night
You were impeded strangely in your prayers?
That something hindered you? and that you left
This woman here, your wife, kneeling alone
Upon the hearth?

COREY.
               Yes; I cannot deny it.

HATHORNE.
Did you not say the Devil hindered you?

COREY.
I think I said some words to that effect.

HATHORNE.
Is it not true, that fourteen head of cattle,
To you belonging, broke from their enclosure
And leaped into the river, and were drowned?

COREY.
It is most true.

HATHORNE.
               And did you not then say
That they were overlooked?

COREY.
                      So much I said.
I see; they're drawing round me closer, closer,
A net I cannot break, cannot escape from! (Aside).

HATHORNE.
Who did these things?

COREY.
         I do not know who did them.

HATHORNE.
Then I will tell you. It is some one near you;
You see her now; this woman, your own wife.

COREY.
I call the heavens to witness, it is false!
She never harmed me, never hindered me
In anything but what I should not do.
And I bear witness in the sight of heaven,
And in God's house here, that I never knew her
As otherwise than patient, brave, and true,
Faithful, forgiving, full of charity,
A virtuous and industrious and good wife!

HATHORNE.
Tut, tut, man; do not rant so in your speech;
You are a witness, not an advocate!
Here, Sheriff, take this woman back to prison.

MARTHA.
O Giles, this day you've sworn away my life!

MARY.
Go, go and join the Witches at the door.
Do you not hear the drum? Do you not see them?
Go quick. They're waiting for you. You are late.
[Exit MARTHA; COREY following.

COREY.
The dream! the dream! the dream!

HATHORNE.
                  What does he say?
Giles Corey, go not hence. You are yourself
Accused of Witchcraft and of Sorcery
By many witnesses. Say, are you guilty?

COREY.
I know my death is foreordained by you,
Mine and my wife's. Therefore I will not answer.

During the rest of the scene he remains silent.

HATHORNE.
Do you refuse to plead?--'T were better for you
To make confession, or to plead Not Guilty.--
Do you not hear me?--Answer, are you guilty?
Do you not know a heavier doom awaits you,
If you refuse to plead, than if found guilty?
Where is John Gloyd?

GLOYD (coming forward).
               Here am I.

HATHORNE.
                     Tell the Court
Have you not seen the supernatural power
Of this old man? Have you not seen him do
Strange feats of strength?

GLOYD.
            I've seen him lead the field,
On a hot day, in mowing, and against
Us younger men; and I have wrestled with him.
He threw me like a feather. I have seen him
Lift up a barrel with his single hands,
Which two strong men could hardly lift together,
And, holding it above his head, drink from it.

HATHORNE.
That is enough; we need not question further.
What answer do you make to this, Giles Corey?

MARY.
See there! See there!

HATHORNE.
           What is it? I see nothing.

MARY.
Look! Look! It is the ghost of Robert Goodell,
Whom fifteen years ago this man did murder
By stamping on his body! In his shroud
He comes here to bear witness to the crime!

The crowd shrinks back from COREY in horror.

HATHORNE.
Ghosts of the dead and voices of the living
Bear witness to your guilt, and you must die!
It might have been an easier death. Your doom
Will be on your own head, and not on ours.
Twice more will you be questioned of these things;
Twice more have room to plead or to confess.
If you are contumacious to the Court,
And if, when questioned, you refuse to answer,
Then by the Statute you will be condemned
To the peine forte et dure! To have your body
Pressed by great weights until you shall be dead!
And may the Lord have mercy on your soul!

ACT V.

SCENE I. -- COREy's farm as in Act II., Scene I. Enter RICHARD
GARDNER, looking round him.

GARDNER.
Here stands the house as I remember it.
The four tall poplar-trees before the door;
The house, the barn, the orchard, and the well,
With its moss-covered bucket and its trough;
The garden, with its hedge of currant-bushes;
The woods, the harvest-fields; and, far beyond,
The pleasant landscape stretching to the sea.
But everything is silent and deserted!
No bleat of flocks, no bellowing of herds,
No sound of flails, that should be beating now;
Nor man nor beast astir. What can this mean?

Knocks at the door.

What ho! Giles Corey! Hillo-ho! Giles Corey!--
No answer but the echo from the barn,
And the ill-omened cawing of the crow,
That yonder wings his flight across the fields,
As if he scented carrion in the air.

Enter TITUBA with a basket.

What woman's this, that, like an apparition,
Haunts this deserted homestead in broad day?
Woman, who are you?

TITUBA.
                    I'm Tituba.
I am John Indian's wife. I am a Witch.

GARDNER.
What are you doing here?

TITUBA.
              I am gathering herbs,--
Cinquefoil, and saxifrage, and pennyroyal.

GARDNER (looking at the herbs).
This is not cinquefoil, it is deadly nightshade!
This is not saxifrage, but hellebore!
This is not pennyroyal, it is henbane!
Do you come here to poison these good people?

TITUBA.
I get these for the Doctor in the Village.
Beware of Tituba. I pinch the children;
Make little poppets and stick pins in them,
And then the children cry out they are pricked.
The Black Dog came to me and said, "Serve me!"
I was afraid. He made me hurt the children.

GARDNER.
Poor soul! She's crazed, with all these Devil's doings.

TITUBA.
Will you, sir, sign the book?

GARDNER.
                      No, I'll not sign it.
Where is Giles Corey? Do you know Giles Corey!

TITUBA.
He's safe enough. He's down there in the prison.

GARDNER.
Corey in prison? What is he accused of?

TITURA.
Giles Corey and Martha Corey are in prison
Down there in Salem Village. Both are witches.
She came to me and whispered, "Kill the children!"
Both signed the Book!

GARDNER.

         Begone, you imp of darkness!
You Devil's dam!

TITUBA.
                 Beware of Tituba!
                            [Exit.

GARDNER.
How often out at sea on stormy nights,
When the waves thundered round me, and the wind
Bellowed, and beat the canvas, and my ship
Clove through the solid darkness, like a wedge,
I've thought of him upon his pleasant farm,
Living in quiet with his thrifty housewife,
And envied him, and wished his fate were mine!
And now I find him shipwrecked utterly,
Drifting upon this sea of sorceries,
And lost, perhaps, beyond all aid of man!
                                  [Exit.

SCENE II.. -- The prison. GILES COREY at a table on which are
some papers.

COREY.
Now I have done with earth and all its cares;
I give my worldly goods to my dear children;
My body I bequeath to my tormentors,
And my immortal soul to Him who made it.
O God! who in thy wisdom dost afflict me
With an affliction greater than most men
Have ever yet endured or shall endure,
Suffer me not in this last bitter hour
For any pains of death to fall from Thee!

MARTHA is heard singing.
     Arise, O righteous Lord!
       And disappoint my foes;
     They are but thine avenging sword,
       Whose wounds are swift to close.

COREY.
Hark, hark! it is her voice! She is not dead!
She lives! I am not utterly forsaken!

MARTHA, singing.
     By thine abounding grace,
       And mercies multiplied,
     I shall awake, and see thy face;
       I shall be satisfied.

COREY hides his face in his hands. Enter the JAILER, followed by
RICHARD GARDNER.

JAILER.
Here's a seafaring man, one Richard Gardner,
A friend of yours, who asks to speak with you.

COREY rises. They embrace.

COREY.
I'm glad to see you, ay, right glad to see you.

GARDNER.
And I am most sorely grieved to see you thus.

COREY.
Of all the friends I had in happier days,
You are the first, ay, and the only one,
That comes to seek me out in my disgrace!
And you but come in time to say farewell,
They've dug my grave already in the field.
I thank you. There is something in your presence,
I know not what it is, that gives me strength.
Perhaps it is the bearing of a man
Familiar with all dangers of the deep,
Familiar with the cries of drowning men,
With fire, and wreck, and foundering ships at sea!

GARDNER.
Ah, I have never known a wreck like yours!
Would I could save you!

COREY.
                    Do not speak of that.
It is too late. I am resolved to die.

GARDNER.
Why would you die who have so much to live for?--
Your daughters, and--

COREY.
            You cannot say the word.
My daughters have gone from me. They are married;
They have their homes, their thoughts, apart from me;
I will not say their hearts,--that were too cruel.
What would you have me do?

GARDNER.
                    Confess and live.
COREY.
That's what they said who came here yesterday
To lay a heavy weight upon my conscience
By telling me that I was driven forth
As an unworthy member of their church.

GARDNER.
It is an awful death.

COREY.
                     'T is but to drown,
And have the weight of all the seas upon you.

GARDNER.
Say something; say enough to fend off death
Till this tornado of fanaticism
Blows itself out. Let me come in between you
And your severer self, with my plain sense;
Do not be obstinate.

COREY.
                     I will not plead.
If I deny, I am condemned already,
In courts where ghosts appear as witnesses,
And swear men's lives away. If I confess,
Then I confess a lie, to buy a life
Which is not life, but only death in life.
I will not bear false witness against any,
Not even against myself, whom I count least.

GARDNER (aside).
Ah, what a noble character is this!

COREY.
I pray you, do not urge me to do that
You would not do yourself. I have already
The bitter taste of death upon my lips;
I feel the pressure of the heavy weight
That will crush out my life within this hour;
But if a word could save me, and that word
Were not the Truth; nay, if it did but swerve
A hair's-breadth from the Truth, I would not say it!

GARDNER (aside).
How mean I seem beside a man like this!

COREY.
As for my wife, my Martha and my Martyr,--
Whose virtues, like the stars, unseen by day,
Though numberless, do but await the dark
To manifest themselves unto all eyes,--
She who first won me from my evil ways,
And taught me how to live by her example,
By her example teaches me to die,
And leads me onward to the better life!

SHERIFF (without).
Giles Corey! Come! The hour has struck!

COREY.
                          I come!
Here is my body; ye may torture it,
But the immortal soul ye cannot crush!
                              [Exeunt.

SCENE III-- A street in the Village. Enter GLOYD and others.

GLOYD.
Quick, or we shall be late!

A MAN.
                 That's not the way.
Come here; come up this lane.

GLOYD.
                        I wonder now
If the old man will die, and will not speak?
He's obstinate enough and tough enough
For anything on earth.

A bell tolls.

                Hark! What is that?

A MAN.
The passing bell. He's dead!

GLOYD.
                       We are too late.
                      [Exeunt in haste.

SCENE IV. -- A field near the graveyard, GILES COREY lying dead,
with a great stone on his breast. The Sheriff at his head,
RICHARD GARDNER at his feet. A crowd behind. The bell tolling.
Enter HATHORNE and MATHER.

HATHORNE.
This is the Potter's Field. Behold the fate
Of those who deal in Witchcrafts, and, when questioned,
Refuse to plead their guilt or innocence,
And stubbornly drag death upon themselves.

MATHER.
O sight most horrible! In a land like this,
Spangled with Churches Evangelical,
Inwrapped in our salvations, must we seek
In mouldering statute-books of English Courts
Some old forgotten Law, to do such deeds?
Those who lie buried in the Potter's Field
Will rise again, as surely as ourselves
That sleep in honored graves with epitaphs;
And this poor man, whom we have made a victim,
Hereafter will be counted as a martyr!

FINALE

SAINT JOHN

SAINT JOHN wandering over the face of the Earth.

SAINT JOHN.
The Ages come and go,
The Centuries pass as Years;
My hair is white as the snow,
My feet are weary and slow,
The earth is wet with my tears
The kingdoms crumble, and fall
Apart, like a ruined wall,
Or a bank that is undermined
By a river's ceaseless flow,
And leave no trace behind!
The world itself is old;
The portals of Time unfold
On hinges of iron, that grate
And groan with the rust and the weight,
Like the hinges of a gate
That hath fallen to decay;
But the evil doth not cease;
There is war instead of peace,
Instead of Love there is hate;
And still I must wander and wait,
Still I must watch and pray,
Not forgetting in whose sight,
A thousand years in their flight
Are as a single day.

The life of man is a gleam
Of light, that comes and goes
Like the course of the Holy Stream.
The cityless river, that flows
From fountains no one knows,
Through the Lake of Galilee,
Through forests and level lands,
Over rocks, and shallows, and sands
Of a wilderness wild and vast,
Till it findeth its rest at last
In the desolate Dead Sea!
But alas! alas for me
Not yet this rest shall be!

What, then! doth Charity fail?
Is Faith of no avail?
Is Hope blown out like a light
By a gust of wind in the night?
The clashing of creeds, and the strife
Of the many beliefs, that in vain
Perplex man's heart and brain,
Are naught but the rustle of leaves,
When the breath of God upheaves
The boughs of the Tree of Life,
And they subside again!
And I remember still
The words, and from whom they came,
Not he that repeateth the name,
But he that doeth the will!

And Him evermore I behold
Walking in Galilee,
Through the cornfield's waving gold,
In hamlet, in wood, and in wold,
By the shores of the Beautiful Sea.
He toucheth the sightless eyes;
Before Him the demons flee;
To the dead He sayeth: Arise!
To the living: Follow me!
And that voice still soundeth on
From the centuries that are gone,
To the centuries that shall be!
From all vain pomps and shows,
From the pride that overflows,
And the false conceits of men;
From all the narrow rules
And subtleties of Schools,
And the craft of tongue and pen;
Bewildered in its search,
Bewildered with the cry,
Lo, here! lo, there, the Church!
Poor, sad Humanity
Through all the dust and heat
Turns back with bleeding feet,
By the weary road it came,
Unto the simple thought
By the great Master taught,
And that remaineth still:
Not he that repeateth the name,
But he that doeth the will!

********

JUDAS MACCABAEUS.

ACT I.

The Citadel of Antiochus at Jerusalem.

SCENE I. -- ANTIOCHUS; JASON.

ANTIOCHUS.
O Antioch, my Antioch, my city!
Queen of the East! my solace, my delight!
The dowry of my sister Cleopatra
When she was wed to Ptolemy, and now
Won back and made more wonderful by me!
I love thee, and I long to be once more
Among the players and the dancing women
Within thy gates, and bathe in the Orontes,
Thy river and mine. O Jason, my High-Priest,
For I have made thee so, and thou art mine,
Hast thou seen Antioch the Beautiful?

Jason.
Never, my Lord.

ANTIOCHUS.
Then hast thou never seen
The wonder of the world. This city of David
Compared with Antioch is but a village,
And its inhabitants compared with Greeks
Are mannerless boors.

JASON.
They are barbarians,
And mannerless.

ANTIOCHUS.
They must be civilized.
They must be made to have more gods than one;
And goddesses besides.

JASON.
They shall have more.

ANTIOCHUS.
They must have hippodromes, and games, and baths,
Stage-plays and festivals, and most of all
The Dionysia.

JASON.
They shall have them all.

ANTIOCHUS.
By Heracles! but I should like to see
These Hebrews crowned with ivy, and arrayed
In skins of fawns, with drums and flutes and thyrsi,
Revel and riot through the solemn streets
Of their old town.  Ha, ha! It makes me merry
Only to think of it!--Thou dost not laugh.

JASON.
Yea, I laugh inwardly.

ANTIOCHUS.
The new Greek leaven
Works slowly in this Israelitish dough!
Have I not sacked the Temple, and on the altar
Set up the statue of Olympian Zeus
To Hellenize it?

JASON.
Thou hast done all this.
ANTIOCHUS.
As thou wast Joshua once and now art Jason,
And from a Hebrew hast become a Greek,
So shall this Hebrew nation be translated,
Their very natures and their names be changed,
And all be Hellenized.

JASON.
It shall be done.

ANTIOCHUS.
Their manners and their laws and way of living
Shall all be Greek. They shall unlearn their language,
And learn the lovely speech of Antioch.
Where hast thou been to-day? Thou comest late.

JASON.
Playing at discus with the other priests
In the Gymnasium.

ANTIOCHUS.
Thou hast done well.
There's nothing better for you lazy priests
Than discus-playing with the common people.
Now tell me, Jason, what these Hebrews call me
When they converse together at their games.

JASON.
Antiochus Epiphanes, my Lord;
Antiochus the Illustrious.

ANTIOCHUS.
O, not that;
That is the public cry; I mean the name
They give me when they talk among themselves,
And think that no one listens; what is that?

JASON.
Antiochus Epimanes, my Lord!

ANTIOCHUS.
Antiochus the Mad! Ay, that is it.
And who hath said it? Who hath set in motion
That sorry jest?

JASON.
The Seven Sons insane
Of a weird woman, like themselves insane.

ANTIOCHUS.
I like their courage, but it shall not save them.
They shall be made to eat the flesh of swine,
Or they shall die. Where are they?

JASON.
In the dungeons
Beneath this tower.

ANTIOCHUS.
There let them stay and starve,
Till I am ready to make Greeks of them,
After my fashion.

JASON.
They shall stay and starve.--
My Lord, the Ambassadors of Samaria
Await thy pleasure.

ANTIOCHUS.
Why not my displeasure?
Ambassadors are tedious. They are men
Who work for their own ends, and not for mine
There is no furtherance in them. Let them go
To Apollonius, my governor
There in Samaria, and not trouble me.
What do they want?

JASON.
Only the royal sanction
To give a name unto a nameless temple
Upon Mount Gerizim.

ANTIOCHUS.
Then bid them enter.
This pleases me, and furthers my designs.
The occasion is auspicious. Bid them enter.

SCENE II. -- ANTIOCHUS; JASON; THE SAMARITAN AMBASSADORS.

ANTIOCHUS.
Approach. Come forward; stand not at the door
Wagging your long beards, but demean yourselves
As doth become Ambassadors. What seek ye?

AN AMBASSADOR.
An audience from the King.

ANTIOCHUS.
Speak, and be brief.
Waste not the time in useless rhetoric.
Words are not things.

  AMBASSADOR (reading). "To King Antiochus,
The God, Epiphanes; a Memorial
From the Sidonians, who live at Sichem."

ANTIOCHUS.
Sidonians?

AMBASSADOR.
Ay, my Lord.

ANTIOCHUS.
Go on, go on!
And do not tire thyself and me with bowing!

AMBASSADOR (reading).
"We are a colony of Medes and Persians."

ANTIOCHUS.
No, ye are Jews from one of the Ten Tribes;
Whether Sidonians or Samaritans
Or Jews of Jewry, matters not to me;
Ye are all Israelites, ye are all Jews.
When the Jews prosper, ye claim kindred with them;
When the Jews suffer, ye are Medes and Persians:
I know that in the days of Alexander
Ye claimed exemption from the annual tribute
In the Sabbatic Year, because, ye said,
Your fields had not been planted in that year.

AMBASSADOR (reading).
"Our fathers, upon certain frequent plagues,
And following an ancient superstition,
Were long accustomed to observe that day
Which by the Israelites is called the Sabbath,
And in a temple on Mount Gerizim
Without a name, they offered sacrifice.
Now we, who are Sidonians, beseech thee,
Who art our benefactor and our savior,
Not to confound us with these wicked Jews,
But to give royal order and injunction
To Apollonius in Samaria.
Thy governor, and likewise to Nicanor,
Thy procurator, no more to molest us;
And let our nameless temple now be named
The Temple of Jupiter Hellenius."

ANTIOCHUS.
This shall be done. Full well it pleaseth me
Ye are not Jews, or are no longer Jews,
But Greeks; if not by birth, yet Greeks by custom.
Your nameless temple shall receive the name
Of Jupiter Hellenius. Ye may go!

SCENE III. -- ANTIOCHUS; JASON.

ANTIOCHUS.
My task is easier than I dreamed. These people
Meet me half-way. Jason, didst thou take note
How these Samaritans of Sichem said
They were not Jews? that they were Medes and Persians,
They were Sidonians, anything but Jews?
'T is of good augury. The rest will follow
Till the whole land is Hellenized.

JASON.
My Lord,
These are Samaritans. The tribe of Judah
Is of a different temper, and the task
Will be more difficult.

ANTIOCHUS.
Dost thou gainsay me?

JASON.
I know the stubborn nature of the Jew.
Yesterday, Eleazer, an old man,
Being fourscore years and ten, chose rather death
By torture than to eat the flesh of swine.

ANTIOCHUS.
The life is in the blood, and the whole nation
Shall bleed to death, or it shall change its faith!

JASON.
Hundreds have fled already to the mountains
Of Ephraim, where Judas Maccabaeus
Hath raised the standard of revolt against thee.

ANTIOCHUS.
I will burn down their city, and will make it
Waste as a wilderness. Its thoroughfares
Shall be but furrows in a field of ashes.
It shall be sown with salt as Sodom is!
This hundred and fifty-third Olympiad
Shall have a broad and blood-red sea upon it,
Stamped with the awful letters of my name,
Antiochus the God, Epiphanes!--
Where are those Seven Sons?

JASON.
My Lord, they wait
Thy royal pleasure.

ANTIOCHUS.
They shall wait no longer!

ACT II.

The Dungeons in the Citadel.

SCENE I. -- THE MOTHER of the SEVEN SONS alone, listening.

THE MOTHER.
Be strong, my heart!
Break not till they are dead,
All, all my Seven Sons; then burst asunder,
And let this tortured and tormented soul
Leap and rush out like water through the shards
Of earthen vessels broken at a well.
O my dear children, mine in life and death,
I know not how ye came into my womb;
I neither gave you breath, nor gave you life,
And neither was it I that formed the members
Of every one of you. But the Creator,
Who made the world, and made the heavens above us,
Who formed the generation of mankind,
And found out the beginning of all things,
He gave you breath and life, and will again
Of his own mercy, as ye now regard
Not your own selves, but his eternal law.
I do not murmur, nay, I thank thee, God,
That I and mine have not been deemed unworthy
To suffer for thy sake, and for thy law,
And for the many sins of Israel.
Hark! I can hear within the sound of scourges!
I feel them more than ye do, O my sons!
But cannot come to you. I, who was wont
To wake at night at the least cry ye made,
To whom ye ran at every slightest hurt,
I cannot take you now into my lap
And soothe your pain, but God will take you all
Into his pitying arms, and comfort you,
And give you rest.

A VOICE (within).
What wouldst thou ask of us?
Ready are we to die, but we will never
Transgress the law and customs of our fathers.

THE MOTHER.
It is the Voice of my first-born! O brave
And noble boy! Thou hast the privilege
Of dying first, as thou wast born the first.

THE SAME VOICE (within).
God looketh on us, and hath comfort in us;
As Moses in his song of old declared,
He in his servants shall be comforted.

THE MOTHER.
I knew thou wouldst not fail!--He speaks no more,
He is beyond all pain!

ANTIOCHUS. (within).
If thou eat not
Thou shalt be tortured throughout all the members
Of thy whole body. Wilt thou eat then?

SECOND VOICE. (within).
No.

THE MOTHER.
It is Adaiah's voice. I tremble for him.
I know his nature, devious as the wind,
And swift to change, gentle and yielding always.
Be steadfast, O my son!

THE SAME VOICE (within).
Thou, like a fury,
Takest us from this present life, but God,
Who rules the world, shall raise us up again
Into life everlasting.

THE MOTHER.
God, I thank thee
That thou hast breathed into that timid heart
Courage to die for thee. O my Adaiah,
Witness of God! if thou for whom I feared
Canst thus encounter death, I need not fear;
The others will not shrink.

THIRD VOICE (within).
Behold these hands
Held out to thee, O King Antiochus,
Not to implore thy mercy, but to show
That I despise them. He who gave them to me
Will give them back again.

THE MOTHER.
O Avilan,
It is thy voice. For the last time I hear it;
For the last time on earth, but not the last.
To death it bids defiance and to torture.
It sounds to me as from another world,
And makes the petty miseries of this
Seem unto me as naught, and less than naught.
Farewell, my Avilan; nay, I should say
Welcome, my Avilan; for I am dead
Before thee. I am waiting for the others.
Why do they linger?

FOURTH VOICE (within).
It is good, O King,
Being put to death by men, to look for hope
From God, to be raised up again by him.
But thou--no resurrection shalt thou have
To life hereafter.

THE MOTHER.
Four! already four!
Three are still living; nay, they all are living,
Half here, half there. Make haste, Antiochus,
To reunite us; for the sword that cleaves
These miserable bodies makes a door
Through which our souls, impatient of release,
Rush to each other's arms.

FIFTH VOICE (within).
Thou hast the power;
Thou doest what thou wilt. Abide awhile,
And thou shalt see the power of God, and how
He will torment thee and thy seed.

THE MOTHER.
O hasten;
Why dost thou pause? Thou who hast slain already
So many Hebrew women, and hast hung
Their murdered infants round their necks, slay me,
For I too am a woman, and these boys
Are mine. Make haste to slay us all,
And hang my lifeless babes about my neck.

SIXTH VOICE (within).
Think not,
Antiochus, that takest in hand
To strive against the God of Israel,
Thou shalt escape unpunished, for his wrath
Shall overtake thee and thy bloody house.

THE MOTHER.
One more, my Sirion, and then all is ended.
Having put all to bed, then in my turn
I will lie down and sleep as sound as they.
My Sirion, my youngest, best beloved!
And those bright golden locks, that I so oft
Have curled about these fingers, even now
Are foul with blood and dust, like a lamb's fleece,
Slain in the shambles.--Not a sound I hear.
This silence is more terrible to me
Than any sound, than any cry of pain,
That might escape the lips of one who dies.
Doth his heart fail him? Doth he fall away
In the last hour from God? O Sirion, Sirion,
Art thou afraid? I do not hear thy voice.
Die as thy brothers died. Thou must not live!

SCENE II. -- THE MOTHER; ANTIOCHUS; SIRION,

THE MOTHER.
Are they all dead?

ANTIOCHUS.
Of all thy Seven Sons
One only lives. Behold them where they lie
How dost thou like this picture?

THE MOTHER.
God in heaven!
Can a man do such deeds, and yet not die
By the recoil of his own wickedness?
Ye murdered, bleeding, mutilated bodies
That were my children once, and still are mine,
I cannot watch o'er you as Rispah watched
In sackcloth o'er the seven sons of Saul,
Till water drop upon you out of heaven
And wash this blood away! I cannot mourn
As she, the daughter of Aiah, mourned the dead,
From the beginning of the barley-harvest
Until the autumn rains, and suffered not
The birds of air to rest on them by day,
Nor the wild beasts by night. For ye have died
A better death, a death so full of life
That I ought rather to rejoice than mourn.--
Wherefore art thou not dead, O Sirion?
Wherefore art thou the only living thing
Among thy brothers dead? Art thou afraid?

ANTIOCHUS.
O woman, I have spared him for thy sake,
For he is fair to look upon and comely;
And I have sworn to him by all the gods
That I would crown his life with joy and honor,
Heap treasures on him, luxuries, delights,
Make him my friend and keeper of my secrets,
If he would turn from your Mosaic Law
And be as we are; but he will not listen.

THE MOTHER.
My noble Sirion!

ANTIOCHUS.
Therefore I beseech thee,
Who art his mother, thou wouldst speak with him,
And wouldst persuade him. I am sick of blood.

THE MOTHER.
Yea, I will speak with him and will persuade him.
O Sirion, my son! have pity on me,
On me that bare thee, and that gave thee suck,
And fed and nourished thee, and brought thee up
With the dear trouble of a mother's care
Unto this age. Look on the heavens above thee,
And on the earth and all that is therein;
Consider that God made them out of things
That were not; and that likewise in this manner
Mankind was made. Then fear not this tormentor
But, being worthy of thy brethren, take
Thy death as they did, that I may receive thee
Again in mercy with them.

ANTIOCHUS.
I am mocked,
Yea, I am laughed to scorn.

SIRION.
Whom wait ye for?
Never will I obey the King's commandment,
But the commandment of the ancient Law,
That was by Moses given unto our fathers.
And thou, O godless man, that of all others
Art the most wicked, be not lifted up,
Nor puffed up with uncertain hopes, uplifting
Thy hand against the servants of the Lord,
For thou hast not escaped the righteous judgment
Of the Almighty God, who seeth all things!

ANTIOCHUS.
He is no God of mine; I fear him not.

SIRION.
My brothers, who have suffered a brief pain,
Are dead; but thou, Antiochus, shalt suffer
The punishment of pride. I offer up
My body and my life, beseeching God
That he would speedily be merciful
Unto our nation, and that thou by plagues
Mysterious and by torments mayest confess
That he alone is God.

ANTIOCHUS.
Ye both shall perish
By torments worse than any that your God,
Here or hereafter, hath in store for me.

THE MOTHER.
My Sirion, I am proud of thee!

ANTIOCHUS.
Be silent!
Go to thy bed of torture in yon chamber,
Where lie so many sleepers, heartless mother!
Thy footsteps will not wake them, nor thy voice,
Nor wilt thou hear, amid thy troubled dreams,
Thy children crying for thee in the night!

THE MOTHER.
O Death, that stretchest thy white hands to me,
I fear them not, but press them to my lips,
That are as white as thine; for I am Death,
Nay, am the Mother of Death, seeing these sons
All lying lifeless.--Kiss me, Sirion.

ACT III.

The Battle-field of Beth-horon.

SCENE I. -- JUDAS MACCABAEUS in armor before his tent.

JUDAS.
The trumpets sound; the echoes of the mountains
Answer them, as the Sabbath morning breaks
Over Beth-horon and its battle-field,
Where the great captain of the hosts of God,
A slave brought up in the brick-fields of Egypt,
O'ercame the Amorites. There was no day
Like that, before or after it, nor shall be.
The sun stood still; the hammers of the hail
Beat on their harness; and the captains set
Their weary feet upon the necks of kings,
As I will upon thine, Antiochus,
Thou man of blood!--Behold the rising sun
Strikes on the golden letters of my banner,
Be Elohim Yehovah! Who is like
To thee, O Lord, among the gods!--Alas!
I am not Joshua, I cannot say,
"Sun, stand thou still on Gibeon, and thou Moon,
In Ajalon!"  Nor am I one who wastes
The fateful time in useless lamentation;
But one who bears his life upon his hand
To lose it or to save it, as may best
Serve the designs of Him who giveth life.

SCENE II -- JUDAS MACCABAEUS; JEWISH FUGITIVES.

JUDAS.
Who and what are ye, that with furtive steps
Steal in among our tents?

FUGITIVES.
O Maccabaeus,
Outcasts are we, and fugitives as thou art,
Jews of Jerusalem, that have escaped
From the polluted city, and from death.

JUDAS.
None can escape from death. Say that ye come
To die for Israel, and ye are welcome.
What tidings bring ye?

FUGITIVES.
Tidings of despair.
The Temple is laid waste; the precious vessels,
Censers of gold, vials and veils and crowns,
And golden ornaments, and hidden treasures,
Have all been taken from it, and the Gentiles
With revelling and with riot fill its courts,
And dally with harlots in the holy places.

JUDAS.
All this I knew before.

FUGITIVES.
Upon the altar
Are things profane, things by the law forbidden;
Nor can we keep our Sabbaths or our Feasts,
But on the festivals of Dionysus
Must walk in their processions, bearing ivy
To crown a drunken god.

JUDAS.
This too I know.
But tell me of the Jews. How fare the Jews?

FUGITIVES.
The coming of this mischief hath been sore
And grievous to the people. All the land
Is full of lamentation and of mourning.
The Princes and the Elders weep and wail;
The young men and the maidens are made feeble;
The beauty of the women hath been changed.

JUDAS.
And are there none to die for Israel?
'T is not enough to mourn. Breastplate and harness
Are better things than sackcloth. Let the women
Lament for Israel; the men should die.

FUGITIVES.
Both men and women die; old men and young:
Old Eleazer died: and Mahala
With all her Seven Sons.

JUDAS.
Antiochus,
At every step thou takest there is left
A bloody footprint in the street, by which
The avenging wrath of God will track thee out!
It is enough. Go to the sutler's tents;
Those of you who are men, put on such armor
As ye may find; those of you who are women,
Buckle that armor on; and for a watchword
Whisper, or cry aloud, "The Help of God."

SCENE III. -- JUDAS MACCABAEUS; NICANOR.

NICANOR.
Hail, Judas Maccabaeus!

JUDAS.
Hail!--Who art thou
That comest here in this mysterious guise
Into our camp unheralded?

NICANOR.
A herald
Sent from Nicanor.

JUDAS.
Heralds come not thus.
Armed with thy shirt of mail from head to heel,
Thou glidest like a serpent silently
Into my presence. Wherefore dost thou turn
Thy face from me? A herald speaks his errand
With forehead unabashed. Thou art a spy sent by Nicanor.

NICANOR.
No disguise avails!
Behold my face; I am Nicanor's self.

JUDAS.
Thou art indeed Nicanor. I salute thee.
What brings thee hither to this hostile camp
Thus unattended?

NICANOR.
Confidence in thee.
Thou hast the nobler virtues of thy race,
Without the failings that attend those virtues.
Thou canst be strong, and yet not tyrannous,
Canst righteous be and not intolerant.
Let there be peace between us.

JUDAS.
What is peace?
Is it to bow in silence to our victors?
Is it to see our cities sacked and pillaged,
Our people slain, or sold as slaves, or fleeing
At night-time by the blaze of burning towns;
Jerusalem laid waste; the Holy Temple
Polluted with strange gods? Are these things peace?

NICANOR.
These are the dire necessities that wait
On war, whose loud and bloody enginery
I seek to stay. Let there be peace between
Antiochus and thee.

JUDAS.
Antiochus?
What is Antiochus, that he should prate
Of peace to me, who am a fugitive?
To-day he shall be lifted up; to-morrow
Shall not be found, because he is returned
Unto his dust; his thought has come to nothing.
There is no peace between us, nor can be,
Until this banner floats upon the walls
Of our Jerusalem.

NICANOR.
Between that city
And thee there lies a waving wall of tents,
Held by a host of forty thousand foot,
And horsemen seven thousand. What hast thou
To bring against all these?

JUDAS.
The power of God,
Whose breath shall scatter your white tents abroad,
As flakes of snow.

NICANOR.
Your Mighty One in heaven
Will not do battle on the Seventh Day;
It is his day of rest.

JUDAS.
Silence, blasphemer.
Go to thy tents.

NICANOR.
Shall it be war or peace?

JUDAS.
War, war, and only war. Go to thy tents
That shall be scattered, as by you were scattered
The torn and trampled pages of the Law,
Blown through the windy streets.

NICANOR.
Farewell, brave foe!

JUDAS.
Ho, there, my captains! Have safe-conduct given
Unto Nicanor's herald through the camp,
And come yourselves to me.--Farewell, Nicanor!

SCENE IV. -- JUDAS MACCABAEUS; CAPTAINS AND SOLDIERS.

JUDAS.
The hour is come. Gather the host together
For battle. Lo, with trumpets and with songs
The army of Nicanor comes against us.
Go forth to meet them, praying in your hearts,
And fighting with your hands.

CAPTAINS.
Look forth and see!
The morning sun is shining on their shields
Of gold and brass; the mountains glisten with them,
And shine like lamps. And we who are so few
And poorly armed, and ready to faint with fasting,
How shall we fight against this multitude?

JUDAS.
The victory of a battle standeth not
In multitudes, but in the strength that cometh
From heaven above. The Lord forbid that I
Should do this thing, and flee away from them.
Nay, if our hour be come, then let us die;
Let us not stain our honor.

CAPTAINS.
'T is the Sabbath.
Wilt thou fight on the Sabbath, Maccabaeus?

JUDAS.
Ay; when I fight the battles of the Lord,
I fight them on his day, as on all others.
Have ye forgotten certain fugitives
That fled once to these hills, and hid themselves
In caves? How their pursuers camped against them
Upon the Seventh Day, and challenged them?
And how they answered not, nor cast a stone,
Nor stopped the places where they lay concealed,
But meekly perished with their wives and children,
Even to the number of a thousand souls?
We who are fighting for our laws and lives
Will not so perish.

CAPTAINS.
Lead us to the battle!

JUDAS.
And let our watchword be, "The Help of God!"
Last night I dreamed a dream; and in my vision
Beheld Onias, our High-Priest of old,
Who holding up his hands prayed for the Jews.
This done, in the like manner there appeared
An old man, and exceeding glorious,
With hoary hair, and of a wonderful
And excellent majesty. And Onias said:
"This is a lover of the Jews, who prayeth
Much for the people and the Holy City,--
God's prophet Jeremias."  And the prophet
Held forth his right hand and gave unto me
A sword of gold; and giving it he said:
"Take thou this holy sword, a gift from God,
And with it thou shalt wound thine adversaries."

CAPTAINS.
The Lord is with us!

JUDAS.
Hark! I hear the trumpets
Sound from Beth-horon; from the battle-field
Of Joshua, where he smote the Amorites,
Smote the Five Kings of Eglon and of Jarmuth,
Of Hebron, Lachish, and Jerusalem,
As we to-day will smite Nicanor's hosts
And leave a memory of great deeds behind us.

CAPTAINS and SOLDIERS.
The Help of God!

JUDAS.
Be Elohim Yehovah!
Lord, thou didst send thine Angel in the time
Of Esekias, King of Israel,
And in the armies of Sennacherib
Didst slay a hundred fourscore and five thousand.
Wherefore, O Lord of heaven, now also send
Before us a good angel for a fear,
And through the might of thy right arm let those
Be stricken with terror that have come this day
Against thy holy people to blaspheme!

ACT IV.

The outer Courts of the Temple at Jerusalem.

SCENE I. -- JUDAS MACCABAEUS; CAPTAINS; JEWS.

JUDAS.
Behold, our enemies are discomfited.
Jerusalem is fallen; and our banners
Float from her battlements, and o'er her gates
Nicanor's severed head, a sign of terror,
Blackens in wind and sun.

CAPTAINS.
O Maccabaeus,
The citadel of Antiochus, wherein
The Mother with her Seven Sons was murdered,
Is still defiant.

JUDAS.
Wait.

CAPTAINS.
Its hateful aspect
Insults us with the bitter memories
Of other days.

JUDAS.
Wait; it shall disappear
And vanish as a cloud. First let us cleanse
The Sanctuary. See, it is become
Waste like a wilderness. Its golden gates
Wrenched from their hinges and consumed by fire;
Shrubs growing in its courts as in a forest;
Upon its altars hideous and strange idols;
And strewn about its pavement at my feet
Its Sacred Books, half burned and painted o'er
With images of heathen gods.

JEWS.
Woe! woe!
Our beauty and our glory are laid waste!
The Gentiles have profaned our holy p]aces!

(Lamentation and alarm of trumpets.)

JUDAS.
This sound of trumpets, and this lamentation,
The heart-cry of a people toward the heavens,
Stir me to wrath and vengeance. Go, my captains;
I hold you back no longer. Batter down
The citadel of Antiochus, while here
We sweep away his altars and his gods.

SCENE II. -- JUDAS MACCABAEUS; JASON; JEWS,

JEWS.
Lurking among the ruins of the Temple,
Deep in its inner courts, we found this man,
Clad as High-Priest.

JUDAS.
I ask not who thou art.
I know thy face, writ over with deceit
As are these tattered volumes of the Law
With heathen images. A priest of God
Wast thou in other days, but thou art now
A priest of Satan. Traitor, thou art Jason.

JASON.
I am thy prisoner, Judas Maccabaeus,
And it would ill become me to conceal
My name or office.

JUDAS.
Over yonder gate
There hangs the head of one who was a Greek.
What should prevent me now, thou man of sin,
From hanging at its side the head of one
Who born a Jew hath made himself a Greek?

JASON.
Justice prevents thee.

JUDAS.
Justice? Thou art stained
With every crime against which the Decalogue
Thunders with all its thunder.

JASON.
If not Justice,
Then Mercy, her handmaiden.

JUDAS.
When hast thou
At any time, to any man or woman,
Or even to any little child, shown mercy?

JASON.
I have but done what King Antiochus
Commanded me.

JUDAS.
True, thou hast been the weapon
With which he struck; but hast been such a weapon,
So flexible, so fitted to his hand,
It tempted him to strike. So thou hast urged him
To double wickedness, thine own and his.
Where is this King? Is he in Antioch
Among his women still, and from his windows
Throwing down gold by handfuls, for the rabble
To scramble for?

JASON.
Nay, he is gone from there,
Gone with an army into the far East.

JUDAS.
And wherefore gone?

JASON.
I know not. For the space
Of forty days almost were horsemen seen
Running in air, in cloth of gold, and armed
With lances, like a band of soldiery;
It was a sign of triumph.

JUDAS.
Or of death.
Wherefore art thou not with him?

JASON.
I was left
For service in the Temple.

JUDAS.
To pollute it,
And to corrupt the Jews; for there are men
Whose presence is corruption; to be with them
Degrades us and deforms the things we do.

JASON.
I never made a boast, as some men do,
Of my superior virtue, nor denied
The weakness of my nature, that hath made me
Subservient to the will of other men.

JUDAS.
Upon this day, the five and twentieth day
Of the month Caslan, was the Temple here
Profaned by strangers,--by Antiochus
And thee, his instrument. Upon this day
Shall it be cleansed. Thou, who didst lend thyself
Unto this profanation, canst not be
A witness of these solemn services.
There can be nothing clean where thou art present.
The people put to death Callisthenes,
Who burned the Temple gates; and if they find thee
Will surely slay thee. I will spare thy life
To punish thee the longer. Thou shalt wander
Among strange nations. Thou, that hast cast out
So many from their native land, shalt perish
In a strange land. Thou, that hast left so many
Unburied, shalt have none to mourn for thee,
Nor any solemn funerals at all,
Nor sepulchre with thy fathers.--Get thee hence!

(Music. Procession of Priests and people,
with citherns, harps, and cymbals. JUDAS
MACCABAEUS puts himself at their
head, and they go into the inner courts.)

SCENE III. -- JASON, alone.

JASON.
Through the Gate Beautiful I see them come
With branches and green boughs and leaves of palm,
And pass into the inner courts. Alas!
I should be with them, should be one of them,
But in an evil hour, an hour of weakness,
That cometh unto all, I fell away
From the old faith, and did not clutch the new,
Only an outward semblance of belief;
For the new faith I cannot make mine own,
Not being born to it. It hath no root
Within me. I am neither Jew nor Greek,
But stand between them both, a renegade
To each in turn; having no longer faith
In gods or men. Then what mysterious charm,
What fascination is it chains my feet,
And keeps me gazing like a curious child
Into the holy places, where the priests
Have raised their altar?--Striking stones together,
They take fire out of them, and light the lamps
In the great candlestick. They spread the veils,
And set the loaves of showbread on the table.
The incense burns; the well-remembered odor
Comes wafted unto me, and takes me back
To other days. I see myself among them
As I was then; and the old superstition
Creeps over me again!--A childish fancy!--
And hark! they sing with citherns and with cymbals,
And all the people fall upon their faces,
Praying and worshipping!--I will away
Into the East, to meet Antiochus
Upon his homeward journey, crowned with triumph.
Alas! to-day I would give everything
To see a friend's face, or to hear a voice
That had the slightest tone of comfort in it!

ACT V.

The Mountains of Ecbatana.

SCENE I. -- ANTIOCHUS; PHILIP; ATTENDANTS.

ANTIOCHUS.
Here let us rest awhile. Where are we, Philip?
What place is this?

PHILIP.
Ecbatana, my Lord;
And yonder mountain range is the Orontes.

ANTIOCHUS.
The Orontes is my river at Antioch.
Why did I leave it? Why have I been tempted
By coverings of gold and shields and breastplates
To plunder Elymais, and be driven
From out its gates, as by a fiery blast
Out of a furnace?

PHILIP.
These are fortune's changes.

ANTIOCHUS.
What a defeat it was! The Persian horsemen
Came like a mighty wind, the wind Khamaseen,
And melted us away, and scattered us
As if we were dead leaves, or desert sand.

PHILIP.
Be comforted, my Lord; for thou hast lost
But what thou hadst not.

ANTIOCHUS.
I, who made the Jews
Skip like the grasshoppers, am made myself
To skip among these stones.

PHILIP.
Be not discouraged.
Thy realm of Syria remains to thee;
That is not lost nor marred.

ANTIOCHUS.
O, where are now
The splendors of my court, my baths and banquets?
Where are my players and my dancing women?
Where are my sweet musicians with their pipes,
That made me merry in the olden time?
I am a laughing-stock to man and brute.
The very camels, with their ugly faces,
Mock me and laugh at me.

PHILIP.
Alas! my Lord,
It is not so. If thou wouldst sleep awhile,
All would be well.

ANTIOCHUS.
Sleep from mine eyes is gone,
And my heart faileth me for very care.
Dost thou remember, Philip, the old fable
Told us when we were boys, in which the bear
Going for honey overturns the hive,
And is stung blind by bees? I am that beast,
Stung by the Persian swarms of Elymais.

PHILIP.
When thou art come again to Antioch
These thoughts will be as covered and forgotten
As are the tracks of Pharaoh's chariot-wheels
In the Egyptian sands.

ANTIOCHUS.
Ah! when I come
Again to Antioch! When will that be?
Alas! alas!

SCENE II -- ANTIOCHUS; PHILIP; A MESSENGER

MESSENGER.
May the King live forever!

ANTIOCHUS.
Who art thou, and whence comest thou?

MESSENGER.
My Lord,
I am a messenger from Antioch,
Sent here by Lysias.

ANTIOCHUS.
A strange foreboding
Of something evil overshadows me.
I am no reader of the Jewish Scriptures;
I know not Hebrew; but my High-Priest Jason,
As I remember, told me of a Prophet
Who saw a little cloud rise from the sea
Like a man's hand and soon the heaven was black
With clouds and rain. Here, Philip, read; I cannot;
I see that cloud. It makes the letters dim
Before mine eyes.

PHILIP (reading).
"To King Antiochus,
The God, Epiphanes."

ANTIOCHUS.
O mockery!
Even Lysias laughs at me!--Go on, go on.

PHILIP (reading).
"We pray thee hasten thy return. The realm
Is falling from thee. Since thou hast gone from us
The victories of Judas Maccabaeus
Form all our annals. First he overthrew
Thy forces at Beth-horon, and passed on,
And took Jerusalem, the Holy City.
And then Emmaus fell; and then Bethsura;
Ephron and all the towns of Galaad,
And Maccabaeus marched to Carnion."

ANTIOCHUS.
Enough, enough! Go call my chariot-men;
We will drive forward, forward, without ceasing,
Until we come to Antioch. My captains,
My Lysias, Gorgias, Seron, and Nicanor,
Are babes in battle, and this dreadful Jew
Will rob me of my kingdom and my crown.
My elephants shall trample him to dust;
I will wipe out his nation, and will make
Jerusalem a common burying-place,
And every home within its walls a tomb!

(Throws up his hands, and sinks into the
arms of attendants, who lay him upon
a bank.)

PHILIP.
Antiochus! Antiochus! Alas,
The King is ill! What is it, O my Lord?

ANTIOCHUS.
Nothing. A sudden and sharp spasm of pain,
As if the lightning struck me, or the knife
Of an assassin smote me to the heart.
'T is passed, even as it came. Let us set forward.

PHILIP.
See that the chariots be in readiness
We will depart forthwith.

ANTIOCHUS.
A moment more.
I cannot stand. I am become at once
Weak as an infant. Ye will have to lead me.
Jove, or Jehovah, or whatever name
Thou wouldst be named,--it is alike to me,--
If I knew how to pray, I would entreat
To live a little longer.

PHILIP.
O my Lord,
Thou shalt not die; we will not let thee die!

ANTIOCHUS.
How canst thou help it, Philip? O the pain!
Stab after stab. Thou hast no shield against
This unseen weapon. God of Israel,
Since all the other gods abandon me,
Help me. I will release the Holy City.
Garnish with goodly gifts the Holy Temple.
Thy people, whom I judged to be unworthy
To be so much as buried, shall be equal
Unto the citizens of Antioch.
I will become a Jew, and will declare
Through all the world that is inhabited
The power of God!

PHILIP.
He faints. It is like death.
Bring here the royal litter. We will bear him
In to the camp, while yet he lives.

ANTIOCHUS.
O Philip,
Into what tribulation am I come!
Alas! I now remember all the evil
That I have done the Jews; and for this cause
These troubles are upon me, and behold
I perish through great grief in a strange land.

PHILIP.
Antiochus! my King!

ANTIOCHUS.
Nay, King no longer.
Take thou my royal robes, my signet-ring,
My crown and sceptre, and deliver them
Unto my son, Antiochus Eupator;
And unto the good Jews, my citizens,
In all my towns, say that their dying monarch
Wisheth them joy, prosperity, and health.
I who, puffed up with pride and arrogance,
Thought all the kingdoms of the earth mine own,
If I would but outstretch my hand and take them,
Meet face to face a greater potentate,
King Death--Epiphanes--the Illustrious!
                           [Dies.

*****

MICHAEL ANGELO

Michel, piu che mortal, Angel divino. -- ARIOSTO.

Similamente operando all' artista
ch' a l'abito dell' arte e man che trema. -- DANTE, Par. xiii.,
st. 77.

DEDICATION.

Nothing that is shall perish utterly,
  But perish only to revive again
  In other forms, as clouds restore in rain
  The exhalations of the land and sea.
Men build their houses from the masonry
  Of ruined tombs; the passion and the pain
  Of hearts, that long have ceased to beat, remain
  To throb in hearts that are, or are to be.
So from old chronicles, where sleep in dust
  Names that once filled the world with trumpet tones,
  I build this verse; and flowers of song have thrust
Their roots among the loose disjointed stones,
  Which to this end I fashion as I must.
  Quickened are they that touch the Prophet's bones.

PART FIRST.

I.

PROLOGUE AT ISCHIA

The Castle Terrace. VITTORIA COLONNA, and JULIA GONZAGA.

VITTORIA.
Will you then leave me, Julia, and so soon,
To pace alone this terrace like a ghost?

JULIA.
To-morrow, dearest.

VITTORIA.
                Do not say to-morrow.
A whole month of to-morrows were too soon.
You must not go. You are a part of me.

JULIA.
I must return to Fondi.

VITTORIA.
                         The old castle
Needs not your presence. No one waits for you.
Stay one day longer with me. They who go
Feel not the pain of parting; it is they
Who stay behind that suffer. I was thinking
But yesterday how like and how unlike
Have been, and are, our destinies. Your husband,
The good Vespasian, an old man, who seemed
A father to you rather than a husband,
Died in your arms; but mine, in all the flower
And promise of his youth, was taken from me
As by a rushing wind. The breath of battle
Breathed on him, and I saw his face no more,
Save as in dreams it haunts me. As our love
Was for these men, so is our sorrow for them.
Yours a child's sorrow, smiling through its tears;
But mine the grief of an impassioned woman,
Who drank her life up in one draught of love.

JULIA.
Behold this locket. This is the white hair
Of my Vespasian. This is the flower-of-love,
This amaranth, and beneath it the device
Non moritura. Thus my heart remains
True to his memory; and the ancient castle,
Where we have lived together, where he died,
Is dear to me as Ischia is to you.

VITTORIA.
I did not mean to chide you.

JULIA.
                         Let your heart
Find, if it can, some poor apology
For one who is too young, and feels too keenly
The joy of life, to give up all her days
To sorrow for the dead. While I am true
To the remembrance of the man I loved
And mourn for still, I do not make a show
Of all the grief I feel, nor live secluded
And, like Veronica da Gambara,
Drape my whole house in mourning, and drive forth
In coach of sable drawn by sable horses,
As if I were a corpse. Ah, one to-day
Is worth for me a thousand yesterdays.

VITTORIA.
Dear Julia! Friendship has its jealousies
As well as love. Who waits for you at Fondi?

JULIA.
A friend of mine and yours; a friend and friar.
You have at Naples your Fra Bernadino;
And I at Fondi have my Fra Bastiano,
The famous artist, who has come from Rome
To paint my portrait. That is not a sin.

VITTORIA.
Only a vanity.

JULIA.
               He painted yours.

VITTORIA.
Do not call up to me those days departed
When I was young, and all was bright about me,
And the vicissitudes of life were things
But to be read of in old histories,
Though as pertaining unto me or mine
Impossible. Ah, then I dreamed your dreams,
And now, grown older, I look back and see
They were illusions.

JULIA.
                 Yet without illusions
What would our lives become, what we ourselves?
Dreams or illusions, call them what you will,
They lift us from the commonplace of life
To better things.

VITTORIA.
          Are there no brighter dreams,
No higher aspirations, than the wish
To please and to be pleased?

JULIA.
                      For you there are;
I am no saint; I feel the world we live in
Comes before that which is to be here after,
And must be dealt with first.

VITTORIA.
                    But in what way?

JULIA.
Let the soft wind that wafts to us the odor
Of orange blossoms, let the laughing sea
And the bright sunshine bathing all the world,
Answer the question.

VITTORIA.
                And for whom is meant
This portrait that you speak of?

JULIA.
                         For my friend
The Cardinal Ippolito.

VITTORIA.
                       For him?

JULIA
Yes, for Ippolito the Magnificent.
'T is always flattering to a woman's pride
To be admired by one whom all admire.

VITTORIA.
Ah, Julia, she that makes herself a dove
Is eaten by the hawk. Be on your guard,
He is a Cardinal; and his adoration
Should be elsewhere directed.

JULIA.
                            You forget
The horror of that night, when Barbarossa,
The Moorish corsair, landed on our coast
To seize me for the Sultan Soliman;
How in the dead of night, when all were sleeping,
He scaled the castle wall; how I escaped,
And in my night-dress, mounting a swift steed,
Fled to the mountains, and took refuge there
Among the brigands. Then of all my friends
The Cardinal Ippolito was first
To come with his retainers to my rescue.
Could I refuse the only boon he asked
At such a time, my portrait?

VITTORIA.
                          I have heard
Strange stories of the splendors of his palace,
And how, apparelled like a Spanish Prince,
He rides through Rome with a long retinue
Of Ethiopians and Numidians
And Turks and Tartars, in fantastic dresses,
Making a gallant show. Is this the way
A Cardinal should live?

JULIA.
                      He is so young;
Hardly of age, or little more than that;
Beautiful, generous, fond of arts and letters,
A poet, a musician, and a scholar;
Master of many languages, and a player
On many instruments. In Rome, his palace
Is the asylum of all men distinguished
In art or science, and all Florentines
Escaping from the tyranny of his cousin,
Duke Alessandro.

VITTORIA.
              I have seen his portrait,
Painted by Titian. You have painted it
In brighter colors.

JULIA.
                    And my Cardinal,
At Itri, in the courtyard of his palace,
Keeps a tame lion!

VITTORIA.
                   And so counterfeits
St. Mark, the Evangelist!

JULIA.
                    Ah, your tame lion
Is Michael Angelo.

VITTORIA.
                   You speak a name
That always thrills me with a noble sound,
As of a trumpet! Michael Angelo!
A lion all men fear and none can tame;
A man that all men honor, and the model
That all should follow; one who works and prays,
For work is prayer, and consecrates his life
To the sublime ideal of his art,
Till art and life are one; a man who holds
Such place in all men's thoughts, that when they speak
Of great things done, or to be done, his name
Is ever on their lips.

JULIA.
                   You too can paint
The portrait of your hero, and in colors
Brighter than Titian's; I might warn you also
Against the dangers that beset your path;
But I forbear.

VITTORIA.
             If I were made of marble,
Of Fior di Persico or Pavonazzo,
He might admire me: being but flesh and blood,
I am no more to him than other women;
That is, am nothing.

JULIA.
           Does he ride through Rome
Upon his little mule, as he was wont,
With his slouched hat, and boots of Cordovan,
As when I saw him last?

VITTORIA.
                     Pray do not jest.
I cannot couple with his noble name
A trivial word! Look, how the setting sun
Lights up Castel-a-mare and Sorrento,
And changes Capri to a purple cloud!
And there Vesuvius with its plume of smoke,
And the great city stretched upon the shore
As in a dream!

JULIA.
               Parthenope the Siren!

VITTORIA.
And yon long line of lights, those sunlit windows
Blaze like the torches carried in procession
To do her honor! It is beautiful!

JULIA.
I have no heart to feel the beauty of it!
My feet are weary, pacing up and down
These level flags, and wearier still my thoughts
Treading the broken pavement of the Past,
It is too sad. I will go in and rest,
And make me ready for to-morrow's journey.

VITTORIA.
I will go with you; for I would not lose
One hour of your dear presence. 'T is enough
Only to be in the same room with you.
I need not speak to you, nor hear you speak;
If I but see you, I am satisfied.
                         [They go in.

MONOLOGUE: THE LAST JUDGMENT

MICHAEL ANGELO's Studio. He is at work on the cartoon of the
Last Judgment.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
Why did the Pope and his ten Cardinals
Come here to lay this heavy task upon me?
Were not the paintings on the Sistine ceiling
Enough for them? They saw the Hebrew leader
Waiting, and clutching his tempestuous beard,
But heeded not. The bones of Julius
Shook in their sepulchre. I heard the sound;
They only heard the sound of their own voices.

Are there no other artists here in Rome
To do this work, that they must needs seek me?
Fra Bastian, my Era Bastian, might have done it;
But he is lost to art. The Papal Seals,
Like leaden weights upon a dead man's eyes,
Press down his lids; and so the burden falls
On Michael Angelo, Chief Architect
And Painter of the Apostolic Palace.
That is the title they cajole me with,
To make me do their work and leave my own;
But having once begun, I turn not back.
Blow, ye bright angels, on your golden trumpets
To the four corners of the earth, and wake
The dead to judgment! Ye recording angels,
Open your books and read? Ye dead awake!
Rise from your graves, drowsy and drugged with death,
As men who suddenly aroused from sleep
Look round amazed, and know not where they are!

In happy hours, when the imagination
Wakes like a wind at midnight, and the soul
Trembles in all its leaves, it is a joy
To be uplifted on its wings, and listen
To the prophetic voices in the air
That call us onward. Then the work we do
Is a delight, and the obedient hand
Never grows weary. But how different is it
En the disconsolate, discouraged hours,
When all the wisdom of the world appears
As trivial as the gossip of a nurse
In a sick-room, and all our work seems useless,

What is it guides my hand, what thoughts possess me,
That I have drawn her face among the angels,
Where she will be hereafter? O sweet dreams,
That through the vacant chambers of my heart
Walk in the silence, as familiar phantoms
Frequent an ancient house, what will ye with me?
'T is said that Emperors write their names in green
When under age, but when of age in purple.
So Love, the greatest Emperor of them all,
Writes his in green at first, but afterwards
In the imperial purple of our blood.
First love or last love,--which of these two passions
Is more omnipotent? Which is more fair,
The star of morning or the evening star?
The sunrise or the sunset of the heart?
The hour when we look forth to the unknown,
And the advancing day consumes the shadows,
Or that when all the landscape of our lives
Lies stretched behind us, and familiar places
Gleam in the distance, and sweet memories
Rise like a tender haze, and magnify
The objects we behold, that soon must vanish?

What matters it to me, whose countenance
Is like the Laocoon's, full of pain; whose forehead
Is a ploughed harvest-field, where three-score years
Have sown in sorrow and have reaped in anguish;
To me, the artisan, to whom all women
Have been as if they were not, or at most
A sudden rush of pigeons in the air,
A flutter of wings, a sound, and then a silence?
I am too old for love; I am too old
To flatter and delude myself with visions
Of never-ending friendship with fair women,
Imaginations, fantasies, illusions,
In which the things that cannot be take shape,
And seem to be, and for the moment are.
                  [Convent bells ring.

Distant and near and low and loud the bells,
Dominican, Benedictine, and Franciscan,
Jangle and wrangle in their airy towers,
Discordant as the brotherhoods themselves
In their dim cloisters. The descending sun
Seems to caress the city that he loves,
And crowns it with the aureole of a saint.
I will go forth and breathe the air a while.

II.

SAN SILVESTRO

A Chapel in the Church of San Silvestra on Monte Cavallo.

VITTORIA COLONNA, CLAUDIO TOLOMMEI, and others.

VITTORIA.
Here let us rest a while, until the crowd
Has left the church. I have already sent
For Michael Angelo to join us here.

MESSER CLAUDIO.
After Fra Bernardino's wise discourse
On the Pauline Epistles, certainly
Some words of Michael Angelo on Art
Were not amiss, to bring us back to earth.

MICHAEL ANGELO, at the door.
How like a Saint or Goddess she appears;
Diana or Madonna, which I know not!
In attitude and aspect formed to be
At once the artist's worship and despair!

VITTORIA.
Welcome, Maestro. We were waiting for you.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
I met your messenger upon the way,
And hastened hither.

VITTORIA.
                     It is kind of you
To come to us, who linger here like gossips
Wasting the afternoon in idle talk.
These are all friends of mine and friends of yours.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
If friends of yours, then are they friends of mine.
Pardon me, gentlemen. But when I entered
I saw but the Marchesa.

VITTORIA.
                       Take this seat
Between me and Ser Claudio Tolommei,
Who still maintains that our Italian tongue
Should be called Tuscan. But for that offence
We will not quarrel with him.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
                         Eccellenza--

VITTORIA.
Ser Claudio has banished Eccellenza
And all such titles from the Tuscan tongue.

MESSER CLAUDIO.
'T is the abuse of them and not the use
I deprecate.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
            The use or the abuse
It matters not. Let them all go together,
As empty phrases and frivolities,
And common as gold-lace upon the collar
Of an obsequious lackey.

VITTORIA.
                        That may be,
But something of politeness would go with them;
We should lose something of the stately manners
Of the old school.

MESSER CLAUDIO.
                 Undoubtedly.

VITTORlA.
                              But that
Is not what occupies my thoughts at present,
Nor why I sent for you, Messer Michele.
It was to counsel me. His Holiness
Has granted me permission, long desired,
To build a convent in this neighborhood,
Where the old tower is standing, from whose top
Nero looked down upon the burning city.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
It is an inspiration!

VITTORIA.
                      I am doubtful
How I shall build; how large to make the convent,
And which way fronting.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
                 Ah, to build, to build!
That is the noblest art of all the arts.
Painting and sculpture are but images,
Are merely shadows cast by outward things
On stone or canvas, having in themselves
No separate existence. Architecture,
Existing in itself, and not in seeming
A something it is not, surpasses them
As substance shadow. Long, long years ago,
Standing one morning near the Baths of Titus,
I saw the statue of Laocoon
Rise from its grave of centuries, like a ghost
Writhing in pain; and as it tore away
The knotted serpents from its limbs, I heard,
Or seemed to hear, the cry of agony
From its white, parted lips. And still I marvel
At the three Rhodian artists, by whose hands
This miracle was wrought. Yet he beholds
Far nobler works who looks upon the ruins
Of temples in the Forum here in Rome.
If God should give me power in my old age
To build for Him a temple half as grand
As those were in their glory, I should count
My age more excellent than youth itself,
And all that I have hitherto accomplished
As only vanity.

VITTORIA.
               I understand you.
Art is the gift of God, and must be used
Unto His glory. That in art is highest
Which aims at this. When St. Hilarion blessed
The horses of Italicus, they won
The race at Gaza, for his benediction
O'erpowered all magic; and the people shouted
That Christ had conquered Marnas. So that art
Which bears the consecration and the seal
Of holiness upon it will prevail
Over all others. Those few words of yours
Inspire me with new confidence to build.
What think you? The old walls might serve, perhaps,
Some purpose still. The tower can hold the bells.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
If strong enough.

VITTORIA.
           If not, it can be strengthened.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
I see no bar nor drawback to this building,
And on our homeward way, if it shall please you,
We may together view the site.

VITTORIA.
                         I thank you.
I did not venture to request so much.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
Let us now go to the old walls you spake of,
Vossignoria--

VITTORIA.
             What, again, Maestro?

MICHAEL ANGELO.
Pardon me, Messer Claudio, if once more
I use the ancient courtesies of speech.
I am too old to change.

III.

CARDINAL IPPOLITO.

A richly furnished apartment in the Palace of CARDINAL IPPOLITO.
Night.

JACOPO NARDI, an old man, alone.

NARDI.
I am bewildered. These Numidian slaves,
In strange attire; these endless ante-chambers;
This lighted hall, with all its golden splendors,
Pictures, and statues! Can this be the dwelling
Of a disciple of that lowly Man
Who had not where to lay his head? These statues
Are not of Saints; nor is this a Madonna,
This lovely face, that with such tender eyes
Looks down upon me from the painted canvas.
My heart begins to fail me. What can he
Who lives in boundless luxury at Rome
Care for the imperilled liberties of Florence,
Her people, her Republic? Ah, the rich
Feel not the pangs of banishment. All doors
Are open to them, and all hands extended,
The poor alone are outcasts; they who risked
All they possessed for liberty, and lost;
And wander through the world without a friend,
Sick, comfortless, distressed, unknown, uncared for.

Enter CARDINAL HIPPOLITO, in Spanish cloak and slouched hat.

IPPOLITO.
I pray you pardon me that I have kept you
Waiting so long alone.

NARDI.
                       I wait to see
The Cardinal.

IPPOLITO.
              I am the Cardinal.
And you?

NARDI.
       Jacopo Nardi.

IPPOLITO.
                  You are welcome
I was expecting you. Philippo Strozzi
Had told me of your coming.

NARDI.
                       'T was his son
That brought me to your door.

IPPOLITO.
                  Pray you, be seated.
You seem astonished at the garb I wear,
But at my time of life, and with my habits,
The petticoats of a Cardinal would be--
Troublesome; I could neither ride nor walk,
Nor do a thousand things, if I were dressed
Like an old dowager. It were putting wine
Young as the young Astyanax into goblets
As old as Priam.

NARDI.
                Oh, your Eminence
Knows best what you should wear.

IPPOLITO.
                   Dear Messer Nardi,
You are no stranger to me. I have read
Your excellent translation of the books
Of Titus Livius, the historian
Of Rome, and model of all historians
That shall come after him. It does you honor;
But greater honor still the love you bear
To Florence, our dear country, and whose annals
I hope your hand will write, in happier days
Than we now see.

NARDI.
           Your Eminence will pardon
The lateness of the hour.

IPPOLITO.
                The hours I count not
As a sun-dial; but am like a clock,
That tells the time as well by night as day.
So no excuse. I know what brings you here.
You come to speak of Florence.

NARDI.
                       And her woes.

IPPOLITO.
The Duke, my cousin, the black Alessandro,
Whose mother was a Moorish slave, that fed
The sheep upon Lorenzo's farm, still lives
And reigns.

NARDI.
            Alas, that such a scourge
Should fall on such a city!

IPPOLITO.
                       When he dies,
The Wild Boar in the gardens of Lorenzo,
The beast obscene, should be the monument
Of this bad man.

NARDI.
          He walks the streets at night
With revellers, insulting honest men.
No house is sacred from his lusts. The convents
Are turned by him to brothels, and the honor
Of women and all ancient pious customs
Are quite forgotten now. The offices
Of the Priori and Gonfalonieri
Have been abolished. All the magistrates
Are now his creatures. Liberty is dead.
The very memory of all honest living
Is wiped away, and even our Tuscan tongue
Corrupted to a Lombard dialect.

IPPOLITO.
And worst of all his impious hand has broken
The Martinella,--our great battle bell,
That, sounding through three centuries, has led
The Florentines to victory,--lest its voice
Should waken in their souls some memory
Of far-off times of glory.

NARDI.
                          What a change
Ten little years have made! We all remember
Those better days, when Niccola Capponi,
The Gonfaloniere, from the windows
Of the Old Palace, with the blast of trumpets,
Proclaimed to the inhabitants that Christ
Was chosen King of Florence; and already
Christ is dethroned, and slain, and in his stead
Reigns Lucifer! Alas, alas, for Florence!

IPPOLITO.
Lilies with lilies, said Savonarola;
Florence and France! But I say Florence only,
Or only with the Emperor's hand to help us
In sweeping out the rubbish.

NARDI.
                             Little hope
Of help is there from him. He has betrothed
His daughter Margaret to this shameless Duke.
What hope have we from such an Emperor?

IPPOLITO.
Baccio Valori and Philippo Strozzi,
Once the Duke's friends and intimates are with us,
And Cardinals Salvati and Ridolfi.
We shall soon see, then, as Valori says,
Whether the Duke can best spare honest men,
Or honest men the Duke.

NARDI.
                We have determined
To send ambassadors to Spain, and lay
Our griefs before the Emperor, though I fear
More than I hope.

IPPOLITO.
                The Emperor is busy
With this new war against the Algerines,
And has no time to listen to complaints
From our ambassadors; nor will I trust them,
But go myself. All is in readiness
For my departure, and to-morrow morning
I shall go down to Itri, where I meet
Dante da Castiglione and some others,
Republicans and fugitives from Florence,
And then take ship at Gaeta, and go
To join the Emperor in his new crusade
Against the Turk. I shall have time enough
And opportunity to plead our cause.

NARDI, rising.
It is an inspiration, and I hail it
As of good omen. May the power that sends it
Bless our beloved country, and restore
Its banished citizens. The soul of Florence
Is now outside its gates. What lies within
Is but a corpse, corrupted and corrupting.
Heaven help us all, I will not tarry longer,
For you have need of rest. Good-night.

IPPOLITO.
                           Good-night.

Enter FRA SEBASTIANO; Turkish attendants.

IPPOLITO.
Fra Bastiano, how your portly presence
Contrasts with that of the spare Florentine
Who has just left me!

FRA SEBASTIANO.
              As we passed each other,
I saw that he was weeping.

IPPOLITO.
                        Poor old man!

FRA SEBASTIANO.
Who is he?

IPPOLITO.
       Jacopo Nardi. A brave soul;
One of the Fuoruseiti, and the best
And noblest of them all; but he has made me
Sad with his sadness. As I look on you
My heart grows lighter. I behold a man
Who lives in an ideal world, apart
From all the rude collisions of our life,
In a calm atmosphere.

FRA SEBASTIANO.
                      Your Eminence
Is surely jesting. If you knew the life
Of artists as I know it, you might think
Far otherwise.

IPPOLITO.
          But wherefore should I jest?
The world of art is an ideal world,--
The world I love, and that I fain would live in;
So speak to me of artists and of art,
Of all the painters, sculptors, and musicians
That now illustrate Rome.

FRA SEBASTIANO.
                     Of the musicians,
I know but Goudimel, the brave maestro
And chapel-master of his Holiness,
Who trains the Papal choir.

IPPOLITO.
               In church this morning,
I listened to a mass of Goudimel,
Divinely chanted. In the Incarnatus,
In lieu of Latin words, the tenor sang
With infinite tenderness, in plain Italian,
A Neapolitan love-song.

FRA SEBASTIANO.
                      You amaze me.
Was it a wanton song?

IPPOLITO.
                   Not a divine one.
I am not over-scrupulous, as you know,
In word or deed, yet such a song as that.
Sung by the tenor of the Papal choir,
And in a Papal mass, seemed out of place;
There's something wrong in it.

FRA SEBASTIANO.
             There's something wrong
In everything. We cannot make the world
Go right. 'T is not my business to reform
The Papal choir.

IPPOLITO.
               Nor mine, thank Heaven.
Then tell me of the artists.

FRA SEBASTIANO.
                            Naming one
I name them all; for there is only one.
His name is Messer Michael Angelo.
All art and artists of the present day
Centre in him.

IPPOLITO.
         You count yourself as nothing!

FRA SEBASTIANO.
Or less than nothing, since I am at best
Only a portrait-painter; one who draws
With greater or less skill, as best he may,
The features of a face.

IPPOLITO.
                      And you have had
The honor, nay, the glory, of portraying
Julia Gonzaga! Do you count as nothing
A privilege like that? See there the portrait
Rebuking you with its divine expression.
Are you not penitent? He whose skilful hand
Painted that lovely picture has not right
To vilipend the art of portrait-painting.
But what of Michael Angelo?

FRA SEBASTIANO.
                          But lately
Strolling together down the crowded Corso,
We stopped, well pleased, to see your Eminence
Pass on an Arab steed, a noble creature,
Which Michael Angelo, who is a lover
Of all things beautiful, especially
When they are Arab horses, much admired,
And could not praise enough.

IPPOLITO, to an attendant.
                     Hassan, to-morrow,
When I am gone, but not till I am gone,--
Be careful about that,--take Barbarossa
To Messer Michael Angelo, the sculptor,
Who lives there at Macello dei Corvi,
Near to the Capitol; and take besides
Some ten mule-loads of provender, and say
Your master sends them to him as a present.

FRA SEBASTIANO.
A princely gift. Though Michael Angelo
Refuses presents from his Holiness,
Yours he will not refuse.

IPPOLITO.
                     You think him like
Thymoetes, who received the wooden horse
Into the walls of Troy. That book of Virgil
Have I translated in Italian verse,
And shall, some day, when we have leisure for it,
Be pleased to read you. When I speak of Troy
I am reminded of another town
And of a lovelier Helen, our dear Countess
Julia Gonzaga. You remember, surely,
The adventure with the corsair Barbarossa,
And all that followed?

FRA SEBASTIANO.
             A most strange adventure;
A tale as marvellous and full of wonder
As any in Boccaccio or Sacchetti;
Almost incredible!

IPPOLITO.
                   Were I a painter
I should not want a better theme than that:
The lovely lady fleeing through the night
In wild disorder; and the brigands' camp
With the red fire-light on their swarthy faces.
Could you not paint it for me?

FRA SEBASTIANO.
                             No, not I.
It is not in my line.

IPPOLITO.
                     Then you shall paint
The portrait of the corsair, when we bring him
A prisoner chained to Naples: for I feel
Something like admiration for a man
Who dared this strange adventure.

FRA SEBASTIANO.
                         I will do it.
But catch the corsair first.

IPPOLITO.
                          You may begin
To-morrow with the sword. Hassan, come hither;
Bring me the Turkish scimitar that hangs
Beneath the picture yonder. Now unsheathe it.
'T is a Damascus blade; you see the inscription
In Arabic: La Allah illa Allah,--
There is no God but God.

FRA SEBASTIANO.
                         How beautiful
In fashion and in finish! It is perfect.
The Arsenal of Venice can not boast
A finer sword.

IPPOLITO.
              You like it? It is yours.

FRA SEBASTIANO.
You do not mean it.

IPPOLITO.
                  I am not a Spaniard,
To say that it is yours and not to mean it.
I have at Itri a whole armory
Full of such weapons. When you paint the portrait
Of Barbarossa, it will be of use.
You have not been rewarded as you should be
For painting the Gonzaga. Throw this bauble
Into the scale, and make the balance equal.
Till then suspend it in your studio;
You artists like such trifles.

FRA SEBASTIANO.
                        I will keep it
In memory of the donor. Many thanks.

IPPOLITO.
Fra Bastian, I am growing tired of Rome,
The old dead city, with the old dead people;
Priests everywhere, like shadows on a wall,
And morning, noon, and night the ceaseless sound
Of convent bells. I must be gone from here;
Though Ovid somewhere says that Rome is worthy
To be the dwelling-place of all the Gods,
I must be gone from here. To-morrow morning
I start for Itri, and go thence by sea
To join the Emperor, who is making war
Upon the Algerines; perhaps to sink
Some Turkish galleys, and bring back in chains
The famous corsair. Thus would I avenge
The beautiful Gonzaga.

FRA SEBASTIANO.
                     An achievement
Worthy of Charlemagne, or of Orlando.
Berni and Ariosto both shall add
A canto to their poems, and describe you
As Furioso and Innamorato.
Now I must say good-night.

IPPOLITO.
                      You must not go;
First you shall sup with me. My seneschal
Giovan Andrea dal Borgo a San Sepolcro,--
I like to give the whole sonorous name,
It sounds so like a verse of the Aeneid,--
Has brought me eels fresh from the Lake of Fondi,
And Lucrine oysters cradled in their shells:
These, with red Fondi wine, the Caecu ban
That Horace speaks of, under a hundred keys
Kept safe, until the heir of Posthumus
Shall stain the pavement with it, make a feast
Fit for Lucullus, or Fra Bastian even;
So we will go to supper, and be merry.

FRA SEBASTIANO.
Beware! I Remember that Bolsena's eels
And Vernage wine once killed a Pope of Rome!

IPPOLITO.
'T was a French Pope; and then so long ago;
Who knows?--perhaps the story is not true.

IV.

BORGO DELLE VERGINE AT NAPLES

Room in the Palace of JULIA GONZAGA. Night.

JULIA GONZAGA, GIOVANNI VALDESSO.

JULIA.
Do not go yet.

VALDESSO.
            The night is far advanced;
I fear to stay too late, and weary you
With these discussions.

JULIA.
                     I have much to say.
I speak to you, Valdesso, with that frankness
Which is the greatest privilege of friendship.--
Speak as I hardly would to my confessor,
Such is my confidence in you.

VALDESSO.
                          Dear Countess
If loyalty to friendship be a claim
Upon your confidence, then I may claim it.

JULIA.
Then sit again, and listen unto things
That nearer are to me than life itself.

VALDESSO.
In all things I am happy to obey you,
And happiest then when you command me most.

JULIA.
Laying aside all useless rhetoric,
That is superfluous between us two,
I come at once unto the point and say,
You know my outward life, my rank and fortune;
Countess of Fondi, Duchess of Trajetto,
A widow rich and flattered, for whose hand
In marriage princes ask, and ask it only
To be rejected. All the world can offer
Lies at my feet. If I remind you of it,
It is not in the way of idle boasting,
But only to the better understanding
Of what comes after.

VALDESSO.
                God hath given you also
Beauty and intellect; and the signal grace
To lead a spotless life amid temptations,
That others yield to.

JULIA.
                  But the inward life,--
That you know not; 't is known but to myself,
And is to me a mystery and a pain.
A soul disquieted, and ill at ease,
A mind perplexed with doubts and apprehensions,
A heart dissatisfied with all around me,
And with myself, so that sometimes I weep,
Discouraged and disgusted with the world.

VALDESSO.
Whene'er we cross a river at a ford,
If we would pass in safety, we must keep
Our eyes fixed steadfast on the shore beyond,
For if we cast them on the flowing stream,
The head swims with it; so if we would cross
The running flood of things here in the world,
Our souls must not look down, but fix their sight
On the firm land beyond.

JULIA.
                    I comprehend you.
You think I am too worldly; that my head
Swims with the giddying whirl of life about me.
Is that your meaning?

VALDESSO.
                Yes; your meditations
Are more of this world and its vanities
Than of the world to come.

JULIA.
                      Between the two
I am confused.

VALDESSO.
            Yet have I seen you listen
Enraptured when Fra Bernardino preached
Of faith and hope and charity.

JULIA.
                             I listen,
But only as to music without meaning.
It moves me for the moment, and I think
How beautiful it is to be a saint,
As dear Vittoria is; but I am weak
And  wayward, and I soon fall back again
To my old ways, so very easily.
There are too many week-days for one Sunday.

VALDESSO.
Then take the Sunday with you through the week,
And sweeten with it all the other days.

JULIA.
In part I do so; for to put a stop
To idle tongues, what men might say of me
If I lived all alone here in my palace,
And not from a vocation that I feel
For the monastic life, I now am living
With Sister Caterina at the convent
Of Santa Chiara, and I come here only
On certain days, for my affairs, or visits
Of ceremony, or to be with friends.
For I confess, to live among my friends
Is Paradise to me; my Purgatory
Is living among people I dislike.
And so I pass my life in these two worlds,
This palace and the convent.

VALDESSO.
                           It was then
The fear of man, and not the love of God,
That led you to this step. Why will you not
Give all your heart to God?

JULIA.
                   If God commands it,
Wherefore hath He not made me capable
Of doing for Him what I wish to do
As easily as I could offer Him
This jewel from my hand, this gown I wear,
Or aught else that is mine?

VALDESSO.
                     The hindrance lies
In that original sin, by which all fell.

JULIA.
Ah me, I cannot bring my troubled mind
To wish well to that Adam, our first parent,
Who by his sin lost Paradise for us,
And brought such ills upon us.

VALDESSO.
                        We ourselves,
When we commit a sin, lose Paradise,
As much as he did. Let us think of this,
And how we may regain it.

JULIA.
                    Teach me, then,
To harmonize the discord of my life,
And stop the painful jangle of these wires.

VALDESSO.
That is a task impossible, until
You tune your heart-strings to a higher key
Than earthly melodies.

JULIA.
                    How shall I do it?
Point out to me the way of this perfection,
And I will follow you; for you have made
My soul enamored with it, and I cannot
Rest satisfied until I find it out.
But lead me privately, so that the world
Hear not my steps; I would not give occasion
For talk among the people.

VALDESSO.
                          Now at last
I understand you fully. Then, what need
Is there for us to beat about the bush?
I know what you desire of me.

JULIA.
                        What rudeness!
If you already know it, why not tell me?

VALDESSO.
Because I rather wait for you to ask it
With your own lips.

JULIA.
            Do me the kindness, then,
To speak without reserve; and with all frankness,
If you divine the truth, will I confess it.

VALDESSO.
I am content.

JULIA.
               Then speak.

VALDESSO.
                    You would be free
From the vexatious thoughts that come and go
Through your imagination, and would have me
Point out some royal road and lady-like
Which you may walk in, and not wound your feet;
You would attain to the divine perfection,
And yet not turn your back upon the world;
You would possess humility within,
But not reveal it in your outward actions;
You would have patience, but without the rude
Occasions that require its exercise;
You would despise the world, but in such fashion
The world should not despise you in return;
Would clothe the soul with all the Christian graces,
Yet not despoil the body of its gauds;
Would feed the soul with spiritual food,
Yet not deprive the body of its feasts;
Would seem angelic in the sight of God,
Yet not too saint-like in the eyes of men;
In short, would lead a holy Christian life
In such a way that even your nearest friend
Would not detect therein one circumstance
To show a change from what it was before.
Have I divined your secret?

JULIA.
                      You have drawn
The portrait of my inner self as truly
As the most skilful painter ever painted
A human face.

VALDESSO.
          This warrants me in saying
You think you can win heaven by compromise,
And not by verdict.

JULIA
               You have often told me
That a bad compromise was better even
Than a good verdict.

VALDESSO.
                 Yes, in suits at law;
Not in religion. With the human soul
There is no compromise. By faith alone
Can man be justified.

JULIA.
                 Hush, dear Valdesso;
That is a heresy. Do not, I pray you,
Proclaim it from the house-top, but preserve it
As something precious, hidden in your heart,
As I, who half believe and tremble at it.

VALDESSO.
I must proclaim the truth.

JULIA.
                           Enthusiast!
Why must you? You imperil both yourself
And friends by your imprudence. Pray, be patient.
You have occasion now to show that virtue
Which you lay stress upon. Let us return
To our lost pathway. Show me by what steps
I shall walk in it.
                  [Convent bells are heard.

VALDESSO.
                  Hark! the convent bells
Are ringing; it is midnight; I must leave you.
And yet I linger. Pardon me, dear Countess,
Since you to-night have made me your confessor,
If I so far may venture, I will warn you
Upon one point.

JULIA.
      What is it? Speak, I pray you,
For I have no concealments in my conduct;
All is as open as the light of day.
What is it you would warn me of?

VALDESSO.
                      Your friendship
With Cardinal Ippolito.

JULIA.
                       What is there
To cause suspicion or alarm in that,
More than in friendships that I entertain
With you and others? I ne'er sat with him
Alone at night, as I am sitting now
With you, Valdesso.

VALDESSO.
            Pardon me; the portrait
That Fra Bastiano painted was for him.
Is that quite prudent?

JULIA.
              That is the same question
Vittoria put to me, when I last saw her.
I make you the same answer. That was not
A pledge of love, but of pure gratitude.
Recall the adventure of that dreadful night
When Barbarossa with two thousand Moors
Landed upon the coast, and in the darkness
Attacked my castle. Then, without delay,
The Cardinal came hurrying down from Rome
To rescue and protect me. Was it wrong
That in an hour like that I did not weigh
Too nicely this or that, but granted him
A boon that pleased him, and that flattered me?

VALDESSO.
Only beware lest, in disguise of friendship
Another corsair, worse than Barbarossa,
Steal in and seize the castle, not by storm
But strategy. And now I take my leave.

JULIA.
Farewell; but ere you go look forth and see
How night hath hushed the clamor and the stir
Of the tumultuous streets. The cloudless moon
Roofs the whole city as with tiles of silver;
The dim, mysterious sea in silence sleeps;
And straight into the air Vesuvius lifts
His plume of smoke. How beautiful it is!
                   [Voices in the street.

GIOVAN ANDREA.
Poisoned at Itri.

ANOTHER VOICE.
         Poisoned? Who is poisoned?

GIOVAN ANDREA.
The Cardinal Ippolito, my master.
Call it malaria. It was sudden.
                    [Julia swoons.

V.

VITTORIA COLONNA

A room in the Torre Argentina.

VITTORIA COLONNA and JULIA GONZAGA.

VITTORIA.
Come to my arms and to my heart once more;
My soul goes out to meet you and embrace you,
For we are of the sisterhood of sorrow.
I know what you have suffered.

JULIA.
                          Name it not.
Let me forget it.

VITTORIA.
                  I will say no more.
Let me look at you. What a joy it is
To see your face, to hear your voice again!
You bring with you a breath as of the morn,
A memory of the far-off happy days
When we were young. When did you come from Fondi?

JULIA.
I have not been at Fondi since--

VITTORIA.
                             Ah me!
You need not speak the word; I understand you.

JULIA.
I came from Naples by the lovely valley
The Terra di Lavoro.

VITTORIA.
                    And you find me
But just returned from a long journey northward.
I have been staying with that noble woman
Renee of France, the Duchess of Ferrara.

JULIA.
Oh, tell me of the Duchess. I have heard
Flaminio speak her praises with such warmth
That I am eager to hear more of her
And of her brilliant court.

VITTORIA.
                    You shall hear all
But first sit down and listen patiently
While I confess myself.

JULIA.
                      What deadly sin
Have you committed?

VITTORIA.
                  Not a sin; a folly
I chid you once at Ischia, when you told me
That brave Fra Bastian was to paint your portrait.

JULIA
Well I remember it.

VITTORIA.
                  Then chide me now,
For I confess to something still more strange.
Old as I am, I have at last consented
To the entreaties and the supplications
Of Michael Angelo--

JULIA
                    To marry him?

VITTORIA.
I pray you, do not jest with me! You now,
Or you should know, that never such a thought
Entered my breast. I am already married.
The Marquis of Pescara is my husband,
And death has not divorced us.

JULIA.
                           Pardon me.
Have I offended you?

VITTORIA.
                No, but have hurt me.
Unto my buried lord I give myself,
Unto my friend the shadow of myself,
My portrait. It is not from vanity,
But for the love I bear him.

JULIA.
                             I rejoice
To hear these words. Oh, this will be a portrait
Worthy of both of you!    [A knock.

VITTORIA.
                  Hark! He is coming.

JULIA.
And shall I go or stay?

VITTORIA.
                     By all means, stay.
The drawing will be better for your presence;
You will enliven me.

JULIA.
                    I shall not speak;
The presence of great men doth take from me
All power of speech. I only gaze at them
In silent wonder, as if they were gods,
Or the inhabitants of some other planet.

Enter MICHAEL ANGELO.

VITTORIA.
Come in.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
          I fear my visit is ill-timed;
I interrupt you.

VITTORIA.
                 No; this is a friend
Of yours as well as mine,--the Lady Julia,
The Duchess of Trajetto.

MICHAEL ANGELO to JULIA.
                        I salute you.
'T is long since I have seen your face, my lady;
Pardon me if I say that having seen it,
One never can forget it.

JULIA.
                         You are kind
To keep me in your memory.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
                           It is
The privilege of age to speak with frankness.
You will not be offended when I say
That never was your beauty more divine.

JULIA.
When Michael Angelo condescends to flatter
Or praise me, I am proud, and not offended.

VITTORIA.
Now this is gallantry enough for one;
Show me a little.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
                 Ah, my gracious lady,
You know I have not words to speak your praise.
I think of you in silence. You conceal
Your manifold perfections from all eyes,
And make yourself more saint-like day by day.
And day by day men worship you the wore.
But now your hour of martyrdom has come.
You know why I am here.

VITTORIA.
                     Ah yes, I know it,
And meet my fate with fortitude. You find me
Surrounded by the labors of your hands:
The Woman of Samaria at the Well,
The Mater Dolorosa, and the Christ
Upon the Cross, beneath which you have written
Those memorable words of Alighieri,
"Men have forgotten how much blood it costs."

MICHAEL ANGELO.
And now I come to add one labor more,
If you will call that labor which is pleasure,
And only pleasure.

VITTORIA.
              How shall I be seated?

MICHAEL ANGELO, opening his portfolio.

Just as you are. The light falls well upon you.

VITTORIA.
I am ashamed to steal the time from you
That should be given to the Sistine Chapel.
How does that work go on?

MICHAEL ANGELO, drawing.
                         But tardily.
Old men work slowly. Brain and hand alike
Are dull and torpid. To die young is best,
And not to be remembered as old men
Tottering about in their decrepitude.

VITTORIA.
My dear Maestro! have you, then, forgotten
The story of Sophocles in his old age?

MICHAEL ANGELO.
What story is it?

VITTORIA.
           When his sons accused him,
Before the Areopagus, of dotage,
For all defence, he read there to his Judges
The Tragedy of Oedipus Coloneus,--
The work of his old age.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
                      'T is an illusion
A fabulous story, that will lead old men
Into a thousand follies and conceits.

VITTORIA.
So you may show to cavilers your painting
Of the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
Now you and Lady Julia shall resume
The conversation that I interrupted.

VITTORIA.
It was of no great import; nothing more
Nor less than my late visit to Ferrara,
And what I saw there in the ducal palace.
Will it not interrupt you?

MICHAEL ANGELO.
                         Not the least.

VITTORIA.
Well, first, then, of Duke Ercole: a man
Cold in his manners, and reserved and silent,
And yet magnificent in all his ways;
Not hospitable unto new ideas,
But from state policy, and certain reasons
Concerning the investiture of the duchy,
A partisan of Rome, and consequently
Intolerant of all the new opinions.

JULIA.
I should not like the Duke. These silent men,
Who only look and listen, are like wells
That have no water in them, deep and empty.
How could the daughter of a king of France
Wed such a duke?

MICHAEL ANGELO.
         The men that women marry
And why they marry them, will always be
A marvel and a mystery to the world.

VITTORIA.
And then the Duchess,--how shall I describe her,
Or tell the merits of that happy nature,
Which pleases most when least it thinks of pleasing?
Not beautiful, perhaps, in form and feature,
Yet with an inward beauty, that shines through
Each look and attitude and word and gesture;
A kindly grace of manner and behavior,
A something in her presence and her ways
That makes her beautiful beyond the reach
Of mere external beauty; and in heart
So noble and devoted to the truth,
And so in sympathy with all who strive
After the higher life.

JULIA.
She draws me to her
As much as her Duke Ercole repels me.

VITTORIA.
Then the devout and honorable women
That grace her court, and make it good to be there;
Francesca Bucyronia, the true-hearted,
Lavinia della Rovere and the Orsini,
The Magdalena and the Cherubina,
And Anne de Parthenai, who sings so sweetly;
All lovely women, full of noble thoughts
And aspirations after noble things.

JULIA.
Boccaccio would have envied you such dames.

VITTORIA.
No; his Fiammettas and his Philomenas
Are fitter company for Ser Giovanni;
I fear he hardly would have comprehended
The women that I speak of.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
                        Yet he wrote
The story of Griselda. That is something
To set down in his favor.

VITTORIA.
                    With these ladies
Was a young girl, Olympia Morate,
Daughter of Fulvio, the learned scholar,
Famous in all the universities.
A marvellous child, who at the spinning wheel,
And in the daily round of household cares,
Hath learned both Greek and Latin; and is now
A favorite of the Duchess and companion
Of Princess Anne. This beautiful young Sappho
Sometimes recited to us Grecian odes
That she had written, with a voice whose sadness
Thrilled and o'ermastered me, and made me look
Into the future time, and ask myself
What destiny will be hers.

JULIA.
                     A sad one, surely.
Frost kills the flowers that blossom out of season;
And these precocious intellects portend
A life of sorrow or an early death.

VITTORIA.
About the court were many learned men;
Chilian Sinapius from beyond the Alps,
And Celio Curione, and Manzolli,
The Duke's physician; and a pale young man,
Charles d'Espeville of Geneva, whom the Duchess
Doth much delight to talk with and to read,
For he hath written a book of Institutes
The Duchess greatly praises, though some call it
The Koran of the heretics.

JULIA.
                    And what poets
Were there to sing you madrigals, and praise
Olympia's eyes and Cherubina's tresses?

VITTORIA.
No; for great Ariosto is no more.
The voice that filled those halls with melody
Has long been hushed in death.

JULIA.
               You should have made
A pilgrimage unto the poet's tomb,
And laid a wreath upon it, for the words
He spake of you.

VITTORIA.
          And of yourself no less,
And of our master, Michael Angelo.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
Of me?

VITTORIA.
   Have you forgotten that he calls you
Michael, less man than angel, and divine?
You are ungrateful.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
           A mere play on words.
That adjective he wanted for a rhyme,
To match with Gian Bellino and Urbino.

VITTORIA.
Bernardo Tasso is no longer there,
Nor the gay troubadour of Gascony,
Clement Marot, surnamed by flatterers
The Prince of Poets and the Poet of Princes,
Who, being looked upon with much disfavor
By the Duke Ercole, has fled to Venice.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
There let him stay with Pietro Aretino,
The Scourge of Princes, also called Divine.
The title is so common in our mouths,
That even the Pifferari of Abruzzi,
Who play their bag-pipes in the streets of Rome
At the Epiphany, will bear it soon,
And will deserve it better than some poets.

VITTORIA.
What bee hath stung you?

MICHAEL ANGELO.
            One that makes no honey;
One that comes buzzing in through every window,
And stabs men with his sting. A bitter thought
Passed through my mind, but it is gone again;
I spake too hastily.

JULIA.
                I pray you, show me
What you have done.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
           Not yet; it is not finished.

PART SECOND

I

MONOLOGUE

A room in MICHAEL ANGELO'S house.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
Fled to Viterbo, the old Papal city
Where once an Emperor, humbled in his pride,
Held the Pope's stirrup, as his Holiness
Alighted from his mule! A fugitive
From Cardinal Caraffa's hate, who hurls
His thunders at the house of the Colonna,
With endless bitterness!--Among the nuns
In Santa Catarina's convent hidden,
Herself in soul a nun! And now she chides me
For my too frequent letters, that disturb
Her meditations, and that hinder me
And keep me from my work; now graciously
She thanks me for the crucifix I sent her,
And says that she will keep it: with one hand
Inflicts a wound, and with the other heals it.
[Reading.

"Profoundly I believed that God would grant you
A supernatural faith to paint this Christ;
I wished for that which I now see fulfilled
So marvellously, exceeding all my wishes.
Nor more could be desired, or even so much.
And greatly I rejoice that you have made
The angel on the right so beautiful;
For the Archangel Michael will place you,
You, Michael Angelo, on that new day
Upon the Lord's right hand! And waiting that,
How can I better serve you than to pray
To this sweet Christ for you, and to beseech you
To hold me altogether yours in all things."

Well, I will write less often, or no more,
But wait her coming. No one born in Rome
Can live elsewhere; but he must pine for Rome,
And must return to it. I, who am born
And bred a Tuscan and a Florentine,
Feel the attraction, and I linger here
As if I were a pebble in the pavement
Trodden by priestly feet. This I endure,
Because I breathe in Rome an atmosphere
Heavy with odors of the laurel leaves
That crowned great heroes of the sword and pen,
In ages past. I feel myself exalted
To walk the streets in which a Virgil walked,
Or Trajan rode in triumph; but far more,
And most of all, because the great Colonna
Breathes the same air I breathe, and is to me
An inspiration. Now that she is gone,
Rome is no longer Rome till she return.
This feeling overmasters me. I know not
If it be love, this strong desire to be
Forever in her presence; but I know
That I, who was the friend of solitude,
And ever was best pleased when most alone,
Now weary grow of my own company.
For the first time old age seems lonely to me.
      [Opening the Divina Commedia.
I turn for consolation to the leaves
Of the great master of our Tuscan tongue,
Whose words, like colored garnet-shirls in lava,
Betray the heat in which they were engendered.
A mendicant, he ate the bitter bread
Of others, but repaid their meagre gifts
With immortality. In courts of princes
He was a by-word, and in streets of towns
Was mocked by children, like the Hebrew prophet,
Himself a prophet. I too know the cry,
Go up, thou bald head! from a generation
That, wanting reverence, wanteth the best food
The soul can feed on. There's not room enough
For age and youth upon this little planet.
Age must give way. There was not room enough
Even for this great poet. In his song
I hear reverberate the gates of Florence,
Closing upon him, never more to open;
But mingled with the sound are melodies
Celestial from the gates of paradise.
He came, and he is gone. The people knew not
What manner of man was passing by their doors,
Until he passed no more; but in his vision
He saw the torments and beatitudes
Of souls condemned or pardoned, and hath left
Behind him this sublime Apocalypse.