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                          _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
  Unsphere dark spirits from their evil airs
  And show all things of love or death, seized me
  As hither I stole to thee. With wild looks
  And wilder lips he vented on my ear
  Boding more wild than both. "Sappho!" he cried,
  "Sappho! Sappho!" and probed my eyes as if
  Destiny moved dark-visaged in their deeps.
  Then tore his rags and moaned, "So young, to cease!"
  Gazed then out into awful vacancy;
  And whispered hotly, following his gaze,
  "The Shadow! Shadow!"

  ANTONIO:                     This is but a whim,
  A sudden gloomy surge of superstition.
  Put it from you, my Helena.

  HELENA:                          But he
  Has often cleft the future with his ken,
  Seen through it to some lurking misery
  And mar of love: or the dim knell of death
  Heard and revealed.

  ANTONIO:               A witless monk who thinks
  God lives but to fulfil his prophecies!

  HELENA: You know him not. 'Tis told in youth he loved
  One treacherous, and in avenge made fierce
  Treaty with Hell that lends him sight of all
  Ills that arise from it to mated hearts!
  Yet look not so, my lord! I'll trust thine eyes
  That tell me love is master of all times,
  And thou of all love master!

  ANTONIO:                         And of thee?
  Then will the winds return unto the night
  And flute us lover songs of happiness!

  HELENA: Nor dare upon a duller note while here
  We tryst beneath the moon?

  ANTONIO:                       My perfect Greek!
  Athene looks again out of thy lids,
  And Venus trembles in thy every limb!

  HELENA: Not Venus, ah, not Venus!

  ANTONIO:                             Now; again?

  HELENA: 'Twas on this temple's ancient gate she found
  Wounded Adonis dead, and to forget,
  Like Sappho leaped, 'tis said, from yonder cliff
  Down to the waves' oblivion below.

  ANTONIO: And will you read such terror in a tale?

  HELENA: Forgive me, then.

  ANTONIO:                Surely you are unstrung,
  And yet there is----    (_Turns away from her._)

  HELENA:                        Is what? Antonio?

  ANTONIO: Nothing: I who must ebb with you and flow
  A little was moved.

  HELENA:            Not you, not you! I'll change
  My tears to laughter, if but fantasy
  May so unmettle you! Not moved, indeed!
  Not moved, Antonio?

  ANTONIO:               Well, let us off,
  My Helena, with these numb awes that wind
  About our joy.

  HELENA:           Thy kiss then, for it can
  Drive all gloom out of the world!

  ANTONIO:                      And thine, my own,
  On Fate's hard brow would shame it of all frown!

  HELENA: Yet is thine mightier, for no frown can be
  When no more gloom's in the world!

  ANTONIO:                       But 'tis thy lips
  That lend it might. If I pressed other----

  HELENA:                                   Other!
  You should not know that any other lips
  Could e'er be pressed; I'll have no kiss but his
  Who is all blind to every mouth but mine!
      (_Breaks from him._)

  ANTONIO: Oh?--Well.

  HELENA: "Oh--well?"--Then it is well I go!

  ANTONIO: Perhaps.

  HELENA:           "Perhaps!"    (_Makes to go._)

  ANTONIO:                    Good-night.

  HELENA (_returning_):               Antonio----?

  ANTONIO: Ah! still----?

  HELENA:        There's gloom in the world again.

  ANTONIO (_kissing her_):              'Tis gone?

  HELENA: Not all, I think.

  ANTONIO:               Two for so small a gloom?
      (_Kisses her again._)

  HELENA: So small!

  ANTONIO:               And still you sigh?

  HELENA:                       The vainest glooms
  To-night seem ominous--as cloud-flakes flung
  Upward before the heaving of the west.
      (_In fright_) Oh!

  ANTONIO:          Helena!

  HELENA:           See, see! 'tis Agabus!

_Enter AGABUS unkempt and distracted._

  AGABUS: O--lovers! lovers! Lord have none of them!

  ANTONIO: Good monk----

  AGABUS: O--yes, yes, yes. You'd give me gold
  To pray for your two souls. (_Crossing himself._) Not I! Not I!
  Know you not love is brewed of lust and fire?
  It gnaws and burns, until the Shadow--Sir, (_Searching about the
      air._)
  Have you not seen a Shadow pass?

  ANTONIO:                               A Shadow?

  AGABUS: Silent and cold. A-times they call him Death:
  I'd have him for my brain--it shakes with fever.
                           (_Goes searching anxiously._

  HELENA: Antonio----

  ANTONIO:                    You're calm?

  HELENA:                         Yes, very calm--
  Of impotence--as one who in a tomb
  Awakes and waits?

  ANTONIO:               He is but mad.

  HELENA:                                 But mad.

  ANTONIO: Yet fear you? still?

          (_A shout is heard._)

  HELENA:                 Who is it? soldiers come
  From Arta?

  ANTONIO: Yes.

  HELENA:             And by this road!--They must
  Not see us!

  ANTONIO: No. But quick, within this breach!

          (_They conceal themselves in the breach. The soldiers pass
           across the stage. The last, as all shout "DI TOCCA!"
           strikes a column near him. It falls, and HELENA starts
           forward shuddering._)

  HELENA: Fallen! Ah, fallen! See, Antonio!

  ANTONIO: What now!

  HELENA (_swaying_): It is as if the earth were wind
  Under my feet!

  ANTONIO:          Are all things thus become
  Omen and dread to you?

  HELENA:                     O, but it is
  The pillar grieving Venus leant upon
  Ere to forget she leapt, and wrote,
        When falls this pillar tall and proud
        Let surest lovers weave their shroud.

  ANTONIO:                              Mere myth!

  HELENA: The shroud! It coldly winds about us--coldly!

  ANTONIO: Should a vain hap so desperately move you?

  HELENA: The breath and secret soul of all this night
  Are burdened with foreboding! And it seems--

  ANTONIO: You must not, Helena!

  HELENA:                       My love, my lord--
  Touch me lest I forget my natural flesh
  In this unnatural awe!  (_He takes her to him._)
            Ah how thy arms
  Warm the cold moan and misery of fear
  Out of my veins!

  ANTONIO:          You rave, but in me stir
  Again the attraction of these dim portents.
  Nay, quiver not! 'tis but a passing mist,
  And this that runs in us is worthless dread!

  HELENA: But ah, the shroud! the shroud!

  ANTONIO:                  We'll weave no shroud,
  But wedding robes and wreaths and pageantry!
  And you shall be my Sappho--but through joys
  Such as shall legend ecstasy about
  Our knitted names when distant lovers dream.

  HELENA: I'll fear no more, then----

  ANTONIO:                    Yet?

  HELENA:                          My lord, let us
  Unloose this strangling secrecy and be
  Open in love. My brother, Haemon, let
  Our hearts betrothed exchange and hope be told
  Him and thy father!

  ANTONIO:          This cannot be--now

  HELENA: It cannot be, and you a god? I'll bow
  Before your eyes no more!--say that it can!

  ANTONIO: Not yet--not now. Haemon's suspicious, quick,
  And melancholy: must be won with service.
  And you are Greek, a name till yesterday
  I never knew pass in the portal to
  My father's ear, but it came out his mouth
  Headlong and dark with curses.

  HELENA:                              Yet of late
  He oft has smiled upon me as he passed.

  ANTONIO: On you--my father? O, he only dreamt,
  And saw you not.

  HELENA:               Then have you also dreamt!
  He looked as you, when, moonlight in my hair,
  You call me----

  ANTONIO:         Stay: I'll call you so no more.

  HELENA: You'll call me so no more?

  ANTONIO:                              No more.

  HELENA:                                   Why do
  You say so--is it kind?

  ANTONIO:                    Why?--why? Because
  Words were they miracles of beauty could
  As little reveal you as a taper's ray
  The lone profundity and space of night!

  HELENA: And yet----

  ANTONIO:               And yet?

  HELENA:              I'll hold you not too false
  If sometimes they trip out upon your lips.

  ANTONIO: Or to my father's eye?

  HELENA:                           If he but look
  Upon me for thy sake.

  ANTONIO:               He smiled, you say?

  HELENA: Gently, as one might in forgetting pain.

  ANTONIO: Perhaps: for some unwonted softness seems
  Near him. But yesterday he called for song,
  Dancing and wine.

  HELENA:           Then tell him! These are years
  So dyed in crime that secrecy must seem
  Yoke-mate of guilt.

  ANTONIO:          Fear has bewitched you--shame!

  HELENA: Antonio, love's wave has cast us high
  I would do all lest now it turn to fate
  Under our feet and draw us out----

  ANTONIO:                             'Twill not!

_Enter PAULA._

  PAULA: My lady, some one comes.

  HELENA:                         And is the world
  Not space enough but he must needs come here!
  If it were----?

  ANTONIO: Haemon?--'Twere perhaps not ill.

  HELENA: I know not! Broodings smoulder from his moods
  Feverous bitter.

  ANTONIO: Kindness then shall quench them.
  But now, away. Forget this dread and be you
  By day my lark, by night my nightingale,
  Not a sad bird of boding!

  HELENA:                     With the day
  All will be well.

  ANTONIO:                   Remember then you are
  Only a little slept from your life's shore
  Out on the infinite of love, whose air
  Is awe and mystery.

  HELENA:                I go, my lord.
  Think of me oft!

  ANTONIO (_taking her in his arms_): My Helena!

          (_She goes with PAULA. He steps aside and watches the
           approaching forms._)

                                       'Tis Haemon!
  My father!

_Enter CHARLES friendly, with HAEMON._

  CHARLES: So, no farther? you'll stop here?

  HAEMON: Sir, if you grant it. I----

  CHARLES (_twittingly_):         Some rendezvous?
  Who is she? Ah, young blood and Spring and night!

  HAEMON: No rendezvous, my lord.

  CHARLES:                       Some lay then you
  Would muse on?

  HAEMON:            Yes, a lay.

  CHARLES:                        And one of love?
  The word, you see, founts easy to my lips.
  (_With confidential archness._) 'Tis recent in my thought--as
      you will learn.

  HAEMON: How, sir, and when?

  CHARLES:            O, when? Be not surprised!--
  Well, to the lay!
                                            (_He goes._

  HAEMON:                 Cruel! His soldiers waste
  The bread of honesty, the hope of age!
  Are drunken, bloody, indolent, and lust
  To tear all innocence away and robe
  Our loveliest in shame!--Yet me, a Greek,
  He suddenly befriends!

  ANTONIO (_coming forward_): Haemon----

  HAEMON:                                  Ah, you?

  ANTONIO: There's room between your tone and courtesy.

  HAEMON: And shall be while I'm readier to bend
  Over a beggar's pain than prince's fingers.

  ANTONIO: And yet you know me better----

