Act II, Scene 2

[The garden of DON LUIS’ palace at Naples; a window with a balcony on one side, or in front:—night.]

[Enter the PRINCE and CELIO muffled up.]

CELIO.
Still sighing? pardon me, your Highness, but
This melancholy is a riddle to me.

PRINCE.
Ah, Celio, so strange a thing is love,
The sighs you think are melancholy sighs,
Yet are not so; I have indeed drunk poison,
But love the taste of it.

CEL.
I used to think
’Twas all of being away from your Porcia;
But now when better starr’d, her brother absent;
Her father unsuspicious, at her bidding
Night after night you come beneath her lattice,
And yet—

PRINCE.
If Porcia be not the cause
Of my complaint she cannot be the cure:
Yet (such is love’s pathology) she serves
To soothe the wound another made.

CEL.
Who then was she, my lord, for whose fair sake
You cannot either love this loving lady,
Nor leave her?

PRINCE.
I would tell you, Celio,
But you would laugh at me.

CEL.
Tell me, however.

PRINCE.
Rememberest not the lady whom we saw
For a few minutes, like some lovely vision,
In this same house a little while ago,
Not Porcia, but her diviner guest?

CEL.
Oh, I remember; is it then to be
The speciality of your Highness’ love,
That, whereas other men’s dies off by absence,
Yours quickens—if it can be love at all
Caught from one transitory glance?

PRINCE.
Nay, Celio;
Because a cloud may cover up the sun
At his first step into the firmament,
Are we to say he never rose at all?
Are we to say the lightning did not flash
Because it did but flash, or that the fountain
Never ran fresh because it ran so fast
Into its briny cradle and its grave?
My love, if ’twere but of one moment born,
And but a moment living, yet was love;
And love it is, now living with my life.

(A harp heard.)

CEL.
O fine comparisons! but hark, I hear
The widow’d turtle in the leaves away
Calling her faithless mate.

PRINCE.
Yes, Celio, ’tis
Porcia—if she sings to me of love,
I am to approach the window; but if jealousy,
I am to keep aloof. Listen!

PORCIA.
(singing within)

Of all the shafts to Cupid’s bow.
The first is tipt with fire;
All bare their bosoms to the blow,
And call the wound Desire.

(She appears at the window.)

PRINCE.
Ah! I was waiting, lovely Porcia,
Till your voice drew me by the notes of love,
Or distanced me by those of jealousy.

POR.
Which needs not music, prince, to signify,
Being love’s plain, prose history.

PRINCE.
Not always;
For instance, I know one,
Who, to refute your theory, Porcia,
Attracts men by her jealousy as much
As she repels them by her love.

POR.
Nay, then
Men must be stranger beings than I thought.

PRINCE.
I know not how that is, I only know
That in love’s empire, as in other empires,
Rebellion sometimes prospers.

POR.
That the night
Would give us leave to argue out their point!
Which yet I fear it will not.

PRINCE.
Why?

POR.
My father,
Who frets about my brother’s sudden absence,
Sits up enditing letters after him;
And therefore I have brought my harp, that while
We talk together I may touch the strings,
So as he, hearing me so occupied,
May not suspect or ask for me. Besides,
We can talk under cover of the music.

PRINCE.
Not the first time that love has found himself
Fretted, Porcia.

POR.
Oh, the wretched jest!
But listen—
The music is for him, the words for you,
For I have much to tell you underneath
This mask of music.

(Plays on the harp.)

You know my father has been long resolved
To quit this government, and to return
To his own country place—which resolution,
First taken on my brother’s supposed death,
My brother’s sudden absence has revived;
And brought to a head—so much so, that to-morrow,
To-morrow, he has settled to depart
To Bellaflor—I scarce can say the words—
But let my tears—

PRINCE.
’Tis well that you should mask
Ill news under sweet music: though, indeed,
A treason to make sweet the poison’d cup.

POR.
Who more than I—

[Enter JULIA within, hurried.]

JULIA.
Madam, madam, your father
Is gone into the garden—I hear his steps.

POR.
Nay then——(Sings)

Love’s second is a poison’d dart,
And Jealousy is named:
Which carries poison to the heart
Desire had first inflamed.

PRINCE.
She sings of jealousy—we must retire;
Hist, Celio!

[CELIO and PRINCE retreat.]

[Enter LUIS.]

JULIA.
Who’s there?

POR.
Speak!

LUIS.
Oh, I, Porcia,
Who writing in my study, and much troubled
About your brother, was seduced away
By your harp’s pleasant sound and the cool night,
To take a turn in the garden.

POR.
Yes, sir, here
I sit, enjoying the cool air that blows
Up from the shore among the whispering leaves.

LUIS.
What better? but, Porcia, it grows late,
And chilly, I think: and though I’d have you here
Singing like a nightingale the whole night through,
It must not be. Will you come in?

[Exit.]

POR.
Directly—
I’ve but a moment.

PRINCE.
(entering) And you shall not need
Repeat the love call, for I heard—

POR.
(playing as she speaks) Nay, listen,
And that attentively. To-morrow, then,
We go to Bellaflor, (you know the place,)—
There in the hill-top, hid among the trees,
Is an old castle; ours, but scarcely used,
And kept by an old man who loves me well,
And can be secret. And if you should come
That way by chance, as hunting it may be,
I think we yet may meet.

LUIS.
(within) Porcia!

POR.
Sir!

LUIS.
(within) It’s time, indeed, to shut your window.

POR.
Hark,
I dare no longer.

PRINCE.
Then farewell!

POR.
Farewell!
Remember Bellaflor: while you retreat
Among the trees, I still shall sing to you
Of love; not that dark shape of jealousy,
But in the weeds of absence.

PRINCE.
A descant
That suits us both,——(aside) but on a different theme.

POR.
(singing)

The last of Cupid’s arrows all
With heavy lead is set;
That vainly weeping lovers call
Repentance or Regret.

[As she retires still singing from the window within, the PRINCE and CELIO retire back into the garden.]