Has set God’s little maid upon the stair,White as her own white lily, and as tall,
Or Raphael, whose Madonnas are divine
Because they are mothers merely; yet I think
Women are the best artists of the world,
For they can take the common lives of men
Soiled with the money-getting of our age,
And with love make them beautiful.
DUCHESS
Ah, dear,
I wish that you and I were very poor;
The poor, who love each other, are so rich.
GUIDO Tell me again you love me, Beatrice.
DUCHESS [fingering his collar]
How well this collar lies about your throat.
[LORD MORANZONE looks through the door from the corridor outside.]
GUIDO Nay, tell me that you love me.
DUCHESS I remember,
That when I was a child in my dear France,
Being at Court at Fontainebleau, the King
Wore such a collar.
GUIDO Will you not say you love me?
DUCHESS [smiling]
He was a very royal man, King Francis,
Yet he was not royal as you are.
Why need I tell you, Guido, that I love you?
[Takes his head in her hands and turns his face up to her.]
Do you not know that I am yours for ever,
Body and soul?
[Kisses him, and then suddenly catches sight of MORANZONE and leaps up.]
Oh, what is that? [MORANZONE disappears.]
GUIDO What, love?
DUCHESS
Methought I saw a face with eyes of flame
Look at us through the doorway.
GUIDO
Nay, ‘twas nothing:
The passing shadow of the man on guard.
[The DUCHESS still stands looking at the window.]
‘Twas nothing, sweet.
DUCHESS
Ay! what can harm us now,
Who are in Love’s hand? I do not think I’d care
Though the vile world should with its lackey Slander
Trample and tread upon my life; why should I?
They say the common field-flowers of the field
Have sweeter scent when they are trodden on
Than when they bloom alone, and that some herbs
Which have no perfume, on being bruiséd die
With all Arabia round them; so it is
With the young lives this dull world seeks to crush,
It does but bring the sweetness out of them,
And makes them lovelier often. And besides,
While we have love we have the best of life:
Is it not so?
GUIDO
Dear, shall we play or sing?
I think that I could sing now.
DUCHESS
Do not speak,
For there are times when all existences
Seem narrowed to one single ecstasy,
And Passion sets a seal upon the lips.
GUIDO
Oh, with mine own lips let me break that seal!
You love me, Beatrice?
DUCHESS
Ay! is it not strange
I should so love mine enemy?
GUIDO Who is he?
DUCHESS
Why, you: that with your shaft did pierce my heart!
Poor heart, that lived its little lonely life
Until it met your arrow.
GUIDO
Ah, dear love,
I am so wounded by that bolt myself
That with untended wounds I lie a-dying,
Unless you cure me, dear Physician.
DUCHESS
I would not have you cured; for I am sick
With the same malady.
GUIDO
Oh, how I love you!
See, I must steal the cuckoo’s voice, and tell
The one tale over.
DUCHESS
Tell no other tale!
For, if that is the little cuckoo’s song,
The nightingale is hoarse, and the loud lark
Has lost its music.
GUIDO
Kiss me, Beatrice!
[She takes his face in her hands and bends down and kisses him; a loud knocking then comes at the door, and GUIDO leaps up; enter a Servant.]
SERVANT A package for you, sir.
GUIDO [carelessly] Ah! give it to me. [Servant hands package wrapped in vermilion silk, and exit; as GUIDO is about to open it the DUCHESS comes up behind, and in sport takes it from him.]
DUCHESS [laughing]
