The Complete Plays of Robert Browning by Robert Browning

Author:Robert Browning [Browning, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9788027236534
Publisher: Musaicum Press
Published: 2017-12-08T00:00:00+00:00

III. — EVENING.

Table of Contents

Inside the Turret. LUIGI and his MOTHER entering.

Mother. If there blew wind, you’d hear a long sigh, easing

The utmost heaviness of music’s heart.

Luigi. Here in the archway?

Mother. Oh no, no — in farther,

Where the echo is made, on the ridge.

Luigi. Here surely, then.

How plain the tap of my heel as I leaped up!

Hark — ’ Lucius Junius! ’ The very ghost of a voice,

Whose body is caught and kept by … what are those?

Mere withered wallflowers, waving overhead?

They seem an elvish group with thin bleached hair

Who lean out of their topmost fortress — looking

And listening, mountain men, to what we say,

Hands under chin of each grave earthy face:

Up and show faces all of you! — ’ All of you! ’

That’s the king’s dwarf with the scarlet comb; now hark —

Come down and meet your fate! Hark — ’ Meet your fate! ’

Mother. Let him not meet it, my Luigi — do not

Go to his City! putting crime aside,

Half of these ills of Italy are feigned:

Your Pellicos and writers for effect,

Write for effect.

Luigi. Hush! say A. writes, and B.

Mother. These A.’s and B’s write for effect, I say.

Then, evil is in its nature loud, while good!

Is silent; you hear each petty injury,

None of his daily virtues; he is old,

Quiet, and kind, and densely stupid. Why

Do A. and B. not kill him themselves?

Luigi. They teach

Others to kill him — me — and, if I fail,

Others to succeed; now, if A. tried and failed,

I could not teach that: mine’s the lesser task.

Mother, they visit night by night …

Mother. — You, Luigi?

Ah, will you let me tell you what you are?

Luigi. Why net? Oh, the one thing you fear to hint,

You may assure yourself I say and say

Ever to myself; at times — nay, even as now

We sit, I think my mind is touched — suspect

All is not sound: but is not knowing that,

What constitutes one sane or otherwise?

I know I am thus — so all is right again!

I laugh at myself as through the town I walk,

And see men merry as if no Italy

Were suffering; then I ponder — ’I am rich,

Young, healthy; why should this fact trouble me,

More than it troubles these?’ But it does trouble!

No — trouble’s a bad word — for as I walk

There’s springing and melody and giddiness,

And old quaint turns and passages of my youth —

Dreams long forgotten, little in themselves —

Return to me — whatever may amuse me,

And earth seems in a truce with me, and heaven

Accords with me, all things suspend their strife,

The very cicale laugh ‘There goes he, and there!

Feast him, the time is short; he is on his way

For the world’s sake: feast him this once, our friend!’

And in return for all this, I can trip

Cheerfully up the scaffold-steps. I go

This evening, mother!

Mother. But mistrust yourself —

Mistrust the judgment you pronounce on him.

Luigi. Oh, there I feel — am sure that I am right!

Mother. Mistrust your judgment, then, of the mere means

Of this wild enterprise: say, you are right, —

How

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