Porzia.

by Cale Young Rice.

PREFACE

Some years ago while writing "A Night In Avignon" the thought came to me of framing two other plays that should deal respectively with the Renaissance spirit at its height and decadence, as that play had dealt with it at its beginning. For the great human upheaval that came intoxicatingly to Italy during the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries is so full of aesthetic contrast and glamor as to be peculiarly suitable for the doubly exacting purposes of poetic drama.

"Giorgione," the second of these plays to be written, was published in 1911 with three other plays in a volume ent.i.tled "The Immortal Lure,"

and like "A Night In Avignon" was received with such kindness as to encourage me to write the third, here presented under the name of "Porzia."

This last play, whose period is that of "decadent Humanism," or as Symonds prefers to call it, of "The Catholic Reaction," is laid in Naples, where the pa.s.sions of men, more than freed from the long domination of the Church and the Hereafter, seemed to reach in their grasp at this life almost incredible heights and depths of excess.

And yet from amid this excess, as from a rank and unweeded garden, were springing into flower many seeds of modern intellectual enfranchis.e.m.e.nt, as the achievements of Bruno and his contemporaries witness.

I need only add that I have sought to use materials that would be true to the time of this final portrayal, and that I therefore trust it may be understood as an organic member of the group to which it belongs.

C. Y. R.

Louisville, Kentucky, June, 1912.

PORZIA

SCENE: _A portion of the house, terrace and garden of Rizzio on his wedding day at Naples. It is so situated as to command a view of the city, the blue Bay with Capri set like a topaz in it, the Vesuvian coast, and the Mountain itself--rising like a calm though unappeasable monitor against the land's too sensual enchantment._

_The house, a white corner of which is visible along the right, has large doors toward the back giving upon the terrace. A vine-clad terrace wall, several feet above the level of the terrace, but much above that of the street without, runs across the rear to a cypress-set gate in the centre, and on into the l.u.s.trous Spring foliage of ilex, myrtle and orange._

_A pedestaled image of the Virgin against the house, a statue of Pan before a bower opposite, and several stone seats forward, are decked with orange blossoms that glow in the light of late afternoon._

_Music, reveling, and laughter are heard, m.u.f.fled, within. Then amid a louder burst of them Osio strides angrily forth. He is followed in argumentative elation by Rizzio--clothed in Greek raiment, a book in his hand--and by Bruno._

_Osio_ (_as they come down_). Proof from the teeth of aliens and fools And infidels that follow their own reason?

I want no proof! your books should burn in h.e.l.l!

_Rizzio_ (_gaily_). Because they glorify the stars in heaven?

_Osio._ I say they are heresy!

_Rizzio._ And I say truth!

[_Uplifts volume._

That were your ears not stopped with sophistries And Jesuitry you would adjudge divine!

[_Tosses it down._

_Bruno._ Ai, Signor Osio, there's no denying!

[_Porzia appears anxiously at the door._

We need but look, To learn that stars are worlds Swung out upon infinitudes of s.p.a.ce.

And as for earth-- Tho Christ shed blood upon it-- 'Tis but a pilgrim flame among them all.

[_Porzia leaves door._

_Osio_ (_turning upon him_). And you, a monk, will say so to the Church And to the Holy Office?

_Bruno_ (_in humorous alarm_). G.o.d forbid!

_Osio._ And you, Rizzio, who on your wedding-day, Mid rites of Venus And revels to Apollo, Wear pagan robes--and prink others in them--

_Rizzio._ Ho, others! meaning Porzia?

_Osio._ I say--

[_Mirth within._

_Rizzio_ (_laughing at him_). What, what, my merry raging brother, more?

That Pan is not your G.o.d, whom I but now Besought for inward beauty and truth of soul?

No, no, he is not, by Vesuvius!

_Osio._ I say--

_Rizzio._ That Plato and the ancients are A plague which only the Pope can purge from earth?

[_Again laughing._

Ai! to the flames with them, and with all fairness!

_Osio._ I say that you--

_Rizzio._ Hey, yea! that I who fall Not on my knees to mitred villainy-- Or cringe to crosiered craft-- And yet whose life is lit for truth and freedom-- Am viler far than you Who take your pleasure and pay it with confession?

Who think the Devil with faith would be no Devil?

[_Porzia again appears with Bianca._

You hear it, Bruno?

_Osio._ I say there is one thing You shall not do!

_Rizzio._ So-ho! my lordly brother, My breaker of betrothals--if not creeds-- And that is what?

_Osio._ I will protect her from it!

_Rizzio._ Her?