



Produced by David Garcia and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Kentuckiana Digital Library)









                          _CHARLES DI TOCCA_

                              _A Tragedy_

                                 _By_

                           _Cale Young Rice_


                       _McClure, Phillips & Co._
                              _New York_
                                 1903



                          COPYRIGHT, 1903, BY
                            CALE YOUNG RICE

                       Published, March, 1903, R



                             _To My Wife_



                          _CHARLES DI TOCCA_




CHARLES DI TOCCA

_A Tragedy_


    CHARLES DI TOCCA      _Duke of Leucadia, Tyrant of Arta, etc._
    ANTONIO DI TOCCA      _His son._
    HAEMON                 _A Greek noble._
    BARDAS                _His friend._
    CARDINAL JULIAN       _The Pope's Legate._
    AGABUS                _A mad monk._
    CECCO                 _Seneschal of the Castle._
    FULVIA COLONNA        _Under the duke's protection._
    HELENA                _Sister to Haemon._
    GIULIA                _Serving Fulvia._
    PAULA                 _Serving Helena._
    LYGIA  }
    PHAON  }              _Revellers._
    ZOE    }
    BASIL  }

    NARDO, a boy, and DIOGENES, a philosopher.

    A Captain of the Guard, Soldiers, Guests, Attendants, etc.

    _Time_: _Fifteenth Century._




ACT ONE


_Scene._--_The Island Leucadia. A ruined temple of Apollo near the town
of Pharo. Broken columns and stones are strewn, or stand desolately
about. It is night--the moon rising. ANTONIO, who has been waiting
impatiently, seats himself on a stone. By a road near the ruins FULVIA
enters, cloaked._

  ANTONIO (_turning_): Helen----!

  FULVIA:           A comely name, my lord.

  ANTONIO:                                Ah, you?
  My father's unforgetting Fulvia?

  FULVIA: At least not Helena, whoe'er she be.

  ANTONIO: And did I call you so?

  FULVIA:                             Unless it is
  These stones have tongue and passion.

  ANTONIO:                          Then the night
  Recalling dreams of dim antiquity's
  Heroic bloom worked on me.--But whence are
  Your steps, so late, alone?

  FULVIA:                       From the Cardinal,
  Who has but come.

  ANTONIO:          What comfort there?

  FULVIA:                                With doom
  The moody bolt of Rome broods over us.

  ANTONIO: My father will not bind his heresy?

  FULVIA: You with him walked to-day. What said he?

  ANTONIO:          I?
  With him to-day? Ah, true. What may be done?

  FULVIA: He has been strange of late and silent, laughs,
  Seeing the Cross, but softly and almost
  As it were some sweet thing he loved.

  ANTONIO (_absently_):                 As if
  'Twere some sweet thing--he laughs--is strange--you say?

  FULVIA: Stranger than is Antonio his son,
  Who but for some expectancy is vacant.
      (_She makes to go._)

  ANTONIO: Stay, Fulvia, though I am not in poise.
  Last night I dreamed of you: in vain you hovered
  To reach me from the coil of swift Charybdis.

          (_A low cry, ANTONIO starts._)

  Fulvia: A woman's voice!
      (_Looking down the road._)
                    And hasting here!

  ANTONIO:                                  Alone?

  FULVIA: No, with another!

  ANTONIO:                       Go, then, Fulvia.
  'Tis one would speak with me.

  FULVIA:                        Ah? (_She goes._)

_Enter HELENA frightedly with PAULA._

  HELENA:                                 Antonio!

  ANTONIO: My Helena, what is it? You are wan
  And tremble as a blossom quick with fear
  Of shattering. What is it? Speak.

  HELENA: Not true!
  O, 'tis not true!

  ANTONIO:             What have you chanced upon?

  HELENA: Say no to me, say no, and no again!

  ANTONIO: Say no, and no?

  HELENA:                Yes; I am reeling, wrung,
  With one glance o'er the precipice of ill!
  Say his incanted prophecies spring from
  No power that's more than frenzied fantasy!

  ANTONIO: Who prophesies? Who now upon this isle
  More than visible and present day
  Can gather to his eye? Tell me.

  HELENA:                               The monk--
  Ah, chide me not!--mad Agabus, who can
