James Branch Cabell

“ THE DUKE Indeed, I must venture to remind you, Count Eglamore, that I am still a ruling prince—
GUIDO
That is nothing to me.
THE DUKE And that, where you are master of very admirable sentiments, I happen to be master of all Tuscany.
GUIDO At court you are the master. At your court in Florence I have seen many mothers raise the veil from their daughters' faces because you were passing. But here upon this hill-top I can see only the woman I love and the man who has insulted her. ”

“ GUIDO opens his pack. She bends above it with hands outstretched.
GUIDO (Taking out a necklace.) For one thing, pearls, black pearls, set with a clasp of emeralds. See! They will become you.
GRACIOSA (Taking them, pressing them to her cheek.) How cool! But I—poor child of a poor noble—I cannot afford such.
GUIDO Oh, I did not mean to offer them to you to-day. No, this string is intended for the Duke's favorite, Count Eglamore.
GRACIOSA (Stiffening.) Count Eglamore! These are for him? ”

“ GUIDO If it be taste to appreciate pearls, then the Duke's chief officer has excellent taste. He seeks them far and wide. He will be very generous in paying for this string.
GRACIOSA drops the pearls, in which she no longer delights. She returns to the bench, and sits down and speaks with a sort of disappointment.
GRACIOSA
I am sorry to learn that this Eglamore is among your patrons.
GUIDO (Still half engrossed by the contents of his pack. The man loves jewels equally for their value and their beauty.) Oh, the nobles complain of him, but we merchants have no quarrel with Eglamore. ”

“ So Duke Alessandro merely makes verses?
GUIDO And otherwise amuses himself as his inclinations prompt, while Eglamore rules Tuscany—and the Tuscans are none the worse off on account of it. (He rises, and his hand goes to the dagger at his belt.) But is not that a horseman?
GRACIOSA (She too has risen, and is now standing on the bench, looking over the wall.) A solitary rider, far down by the convent, so far away that he seems hardly larger than a scarlet dragon-fly. ”

“ Count Eglamore, for example, knows that men may be bought as readily as
merchandise. It is one reason why he is so hated—by the unbought.
GRACIOSA (Irritated by the title.) Count Eglamore, indeed! I ask in my prayers every night that some honest gentleman may contrive to cut the throat of this abominable creature.
GUIDO (His hand going to his throat.) You pray too much, madonna. Even very pious people ought to be reasonable.
GRACIOSA (Rising from the bench.) Have I not reason to hate the man who killed my kinsman?
GUIDO (Rising from his gems.) ”

“ THE DUKE You fear me, do you not, Graciosa? Your hand is soft and cold as the skin of a viper. When I touch it you shudder. I am very tired of women who love me, of women who are infatuated by my beauty. ”

“ THE DUKE A sadly neglected prince, who wondered over the frequent absences of his chief counselor, and secretly set spies upon him. Eglamore here will attest as much— (As GRACIOSA draws away from GUIDO) —or if you cannot believe Eglamore any longer in anything, I shall have other witnesses within the half-hour. Yes, my twenty cut-throats are fetching back for me a brace of nuns from the convent yonder. I can imagine that, just now, my cut-throats will be in your opinion more trustworthy witnesses than is poor Eglamore. And my stout knaves will presently assure you that I am the Duke. ”

“ I think your Duke is much more dangerous looking than any of them. Heigho! I can quite foresee that I shall never fall in love with this Duke.
GUIDO
A prince has means to overcome all obstacles.
GRACIOSA
No. It is unbefitting and a little cowardly for Duke Alessandro to shirk
the duties of his station for verse-making and eternal pleasure-seeking.
Now if I were Duke—
GUIDO
What would you do?
GRACIOSA (Posturing a little as she stands upon the bench.) If I were duke? Oh ... I would grant my father a pension ... and I would have Eglamore hanged ... ”

“ Meanwhile she wishes this sorrow-bringing Eglamore assassinated, as the obvious, the most convenient, and indeed the only way of getting rid of him: and toward the end of the play, alike for her and Guido, the presence of a corpse in her garden is merely an inconvenience without any touch of the gruesome. Precautions have, of course, to be taken to meet the emergency which has arisen: but in the dead body of a man per se, the lovers can detect nothing more appalling, or more to be shrunk from, than would be apparent if the lifeless object in the walkway were a dead flower. ”

“ It happens that not a moment ago we were admiring your highness' portrait.
GRACIOSA And so you are Count Eglamore. That is very strange. So it was the hand of Eglamore (rubbing her hands as if to clean them) that I touched just now. I thought it was the hand of my friend Guido. But I forget. There is no Guido. You are Eglamore. It is strange you should have been capable of so much wickedness, for to me you seem only a smirking and harmless lackey.
The DUKE is watching as if at a play. He is aesthetically pleased by the girl's anguish. ”

“ And therefore I shall not weary of you for a long while, because the misery and the helplessness of my lovely victim will incite me to make very lovely verses.
He draws her to the bench, sitting beside her.
THE DUKE Yes, Graciosa, you will inspire me. Your father shall have all the wealth and state that even his greedy imaginings can devise, so long as you can contrive to loathe me. We will find you a suitable husband—say, in Eglamore here. You shall have flattery and titles, gold and fine glass, soft stuffs and superb palaces and many lovely jewels—
The DUKE glances down at the pedler's pack. ”

“ Count Eglamore said that I must.
THE DUKE (Raises the necklace, and lets it drop contemptuously.) Oh, not such trumpery as this. I have in Florence gems which have not their fellows anywhere, gems which have not even a name, and the value of which is incalculable. I have jewels engendered by the thunder, jewels taken from the heart of the Arabian deer. I have jewels cut from the brain of a toad, and from the eyes of serpents. I have jewels which are authentically known to have fallen from the moon. ”

“ Those nuns they are fetching me are big high-colored wenches with cheeks like apples. It is not desirable that women should be so large. Such women do not inspire a poet. Women should be little creatures that fear you. They should have thin plaintive voices, and in shrinking from you should be as slight to the touch as a cobweb. It is not possible to draw inspiration from a woman's beauty unless you comprehend how easy it would be to murder her.
GUIDO (Softly, without expression.) God, God!
The DUKE looks with delight at GRACIOSA, who stands bewildered and childlike. ”

“ Eglamore, a lackey in attendance upon his master.
THE DUKE Believe me, it is wiser to forget this clever lackey—as I do—except when there is need of his services. I think that you have no more need to consider him—
He takes the girl's hand. GRACIOSA now looks at him as though seeing him for the first time. She is vaguely frightened by this predatory beast, but in the main her emotion is as yet bewilderment.
THE DUKE For you are very beautiful, Graciosa. You are as slim as a lily, and more white. Your eyes are two purple mirrors in each of which I see a tiny image of Duke Alessandro. ”

“ Above all, though, I must remind you that the Duke is unspurred by malevolence. A twinge of jealousy there may be, just at first, to find his pampered Eglamore so far advanced in the good graces of this pretty girl, but that is hardly important. Thereafter the Duke is breaking no law, for the large reason that his preference in any matter is the only law thus far divulged to him. As concerns the man and the girl he discovers on this hill-top, they, in common with all else in Tuscany, are possessions of Duke Alessandro's. ”

“ He draws his dagger. The two men engage warily but with determination, the DUKE presently advancing. GUIDO steps backward, and in the act trips over the pedler's pack, and falls prostrate. His dagger flies from his hand. GRACIOSA, with a little cry, has covered her face. Nobody strikes an attitude, because nobody is conscious of any need to be heroic, but there is a perceptible silence, which is broken by the DUKE'S quiet voice. ”

“ Your cousins, those very angry but penniless Valori, would not stay over-obdurate to a kinsman who had at his disposal so many pensions and public offices. Honor would permit a truce with their new cousin Eglamore, a truce very profitable to everybody.
GRACIOSA
He said they must be bought somehow!
THE DUKE Yes, Eglamore could bind them all to his interest within ten days. All could be bought at a stroke by marrying you. And Eglamore would be rid of the necessity of sleeping in chain-armor. Have I not unraveled the scheme correctly, Eglamore? ”

“ GUIDO The Duke's attendants fetching him new women—two more of those numerous damsels that his song demands. They will revive this ruinous songmaker to rule over Tuscany more foolishly than Eglamore governed when Eglamore was a great lord. (He speaks pensively, still looking down.) It is a very rich and lovely country, this kingdom which a half-hour since lay in the hollow of my hand. ”

“ Besides, what else is a poor maid to do, when she is burdened with a talisman that compels her to marry the man whom she—so very much—prefers?
GUIDO (Drawing her to him.) Ah, you shall not regret that foolish preference.
GRACIOSA But come! There is a path— (They are gathering up the pack and its contents, as GUIDO pauses by the DUKE.) Is he—?
GUIDO He will not enter Hell to-day. (The DUKE stirs.) Already he revives, you see. So let us begone before his attendants come.
GUIDO lifts her to the top of the wall. He lifts up the pack.
GRACIOSA
My lute! ”

“ Smiling, GRACIOSA answers this call by striking her lute. She pats straight her hair and gown, and puts aside the instrument. GUIDO appears at the top of the wall. All you can see of the handsome young fellow, in this posture, is that he wears a green skull-cap and a dark blue smock, the slashed sleeves of which are lined with green. ”

“ We nowadays are encouraged to think differently: but such dear privileges do not entitle us to ignore the truth that had any of these three advanced a dissenting code of conduct, it would, in the time and locality, have been in radical irreverence of the best-thought-of tenets. ”

“ That I worship you is an affair which does not seriously concern any person save me in any way whatsoever. Yet I think that knowledge of the fact would put your father to the trouble of sharpening his dagger. ”

“ The wicked man did not dislike virtue, nor the good man vice: the villain could admire a saint, and the saint could excuse a villain, in things which we often shrink from repeating, and sometimes recoil from believing. ”

“ To the prostitution of her body, whether with or without the assistance of an ecclesiastically acquired husband, she looks forward as unconcernedly as you must by ordinary glance out of your front window, to face a vista so familiar that the discovery of any change therein would be troubling. ”

“ To the right stands a rather high-backed stone bench: by mounting from the seat to the top of the bench it is possible to scale the wall. To the left a crimson pennant on a pole shows against the sky. The period is 1533, and a few miles southward the Florentines, after three years of formally recognizing Jesus Christ as the sole lord and king of Florence, have lately altered matters as profoundly as was possible by electing Alessandro de Medici to be their Duke. ”

“ It is a piece in its inception designed for, and in its making swayed by, the requirements of the little theatre stage. The one virtue which anybody anywhere could claim for The Jewel Merchants is the fact that it "acts" easily and rather effectively. ”